Who Said I Stopped?
by Caralynne
Summary: "She was the one girl who simultaneously drove him crazy and left him wanting more." A collection of missing or extended scenes from the show, mainly exploring the unique dynamic between Beck and Jade. New chapter finally up!
1. Who Said I Stopped?

**So, this is my first fic for Victorious (and my first multi-chaptered fic). There are a lot of moments in the series where I think "oh, I wish I could have seen what happened before/after this scene," so I decided to write my interpretations of a lot of these "missing moments." Some, like the one below, will be extensions of scenes in the show, and some might be completely new – I haven't fully decided yet. I prefer to write in third-person, so most of them will probably be told I third-person but omniscient to only one character.**

**Regardless, I wrote this about the ending of "Jade Dumps Beck," because I think it's a really funny and touching scene, and I wondered what was going through Beck's mind (and what happened after Tori left). Most if not all of these will feature Jade and Beck, because they're pretty much my favorite part of the show, and the characters I think the most about. Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Victorious (although if I did, Liz and Ariana would sing more often, because I think they're awesome).**

…

"Hey, you in college yet?"

Beck stared incredulously at the blonde paramedic, narrowing his eyes as she grabbed his bicep. His dad was on his way to the hospital, and the EMT was hitting on him? Before Beck had a chance to react, however, he felt a familiar set of hands grab his elbow.

"BYE," bellowed Jade, hands intertwined protectively around Beck's elbow. Usually, her possessiveness would amuse him. Considering that they were no longer dating, however, this just served to annoy him further. As he watched his father wave feebly through the ambulance window, his irritation rose, and he turned angrily; Jade dropped his arm like it had burned her. He strode away, indifferent to the stricken look on her face. It wasn't his job to put up with her messes anymore.

"Tori told me to get you a dog." Jade's words were rushed, but they still had that familiar accusatory tone that he was used to. "_Dude," _he heard Tori say indignantly. Beck rolled his eyes. Somehow he'd suspected that Jade would try to pin this disaster on Tori, just as she tried to pin _everything_ on Tori. In fact, Beck wasn't even sure why Tori had apparently been helping Jade in the first place; Jade had made it clear by now that the two of them weren't friends. _This is the kind of crap that I won't miss_, he thought. Wearily he turned to face her. Although his expression was dubious, he was still oddly curious as to how she would explain the entire incident.

He expected Jade to deny the dog attack, to somehow turn the entire thing and somehow make the whole thing _his _fault. He could just imagine her trying to argue that he should have somehow told them beforehand that his dad was in the RV, or that she wouldn't have had to release the dog if it wasn't for his association with Alyssa Vaughn in the first place.

What he didn't expect, however, was the almost-desperate look on her face as she apparently contemplated what to say.

"Okay, it was kind of my idea," she said, and Beck's jaw nearly dropped. Gone was the bossiness that he was used to, instead replaced by an apologetic, almost hysterical jumble of high-pitched words. Jade was _admitting_ that she had screwed up? He couldn't remember the last time she had ever openly acknowledged that she had made a mistake, let alone apologized for it.

Despite his surprise, he kept his face impassive, only raising his eyebrows slightly. As Jade fumbled for words and ran her hands anxiously through her hair, Beck couldn't help but notice how cute she looked when she was stammering. He also couldn't help but notice the note of panic in her tone as the words tumbled out of her mouth.

"I—I didn't think the dog would bug out like that," she said. She began speaking even more rapidly. "I just wanted you to have a dog, because I know you've talked about getting one ever since I met you, and—"

He didn't know what, exactly, compelled him to do it. They were standing several feet apart. Maybe it was the desperation in her face, or the fact that Jade was rarely – if _ever_ – at a loss for words. Maybe it was his shock over the fact that Jade had actually been trying to do something nice for him. Maybe it was simply the fact that he rarely ever saw her express genuine regret over hurting someone else. Whatever the reason, it was enough. He stepped towards her, closing the space between them.

"—and I thought that maybe—"

He responded instinctively. Cutting her off mid-sentence, Beck slid his hands down her wrists and kissed her gently. Though obviously surprised, Jade still responded instantly, pressing her palms against his shoulders as she leaned in to the kiss. For a second, there was only silence as the space between them closed for good.

The kiss was short, but sweet, and Beck could feel Jade's shocked happiness as he pulled away. The Jade he saw standing in front of him was not the tough, feisty girl he was used to. This Jade looked unsteady and vulnerable, almost even shy – three adjectives Beck never usually associated with the Jade West. As he slowly released her wrists, a tiny smile flitted across her lips.

"You love me again." Her voice was small, but hopeful.

And even though she looked tiny and timid and nervous, Beck was struck by how beautiful she was, all dark hair and pale skin illuminated by the moonlight. Of course he loved her. He had always loved her. He just hadn't realized how much he needed her until now.

"Who said I stopped?"

Jade's eyes widened, a full smile spreading across her face. He smiled slightly himself, and was fully prepared to lean back in and resume making up with Jade when Tori's "awwww!" interrupted them.

And just like that, Jade's smile vanished, replaced by the desperately familiar look of annoyance that he had seen cross her face a thousand times. As they turned around to face Tori, Beck had a hard time keeping that same expression off of his face. Tori seemed to sense their irritation and blushed slightly, mumbling about ruining the moment.

Yet Jade surprised him again when she addressed Tori. "It's cool," she said shakily, the ghost of a smile flitting across her face. "And I really do owe you."

On a normal occasion, Beck would have noted how strange it was to hear Jade _thanking_ Tori for anything. However, he was too distracted to think much about it at all as Jade turned back around to face him, a full, genuine smile on her face. He couldn't remember the last time he had seen her smile like that, pure happiness with no hint of a smirk whatsoever.

He leaned in as she turned and their lips met once again. What started as another sweet kiss rapidly escalated as their lips met hungrily; her hands were on his face, the tips of her fingers tangling in his hair as the kiss deepened. Beck suddenly couldn't understand how he had gone without _this_, even if it had only been a week since they had broken up. He could feel her now, smiling against his lips, and knew that Jade was thinking the same thing.

The continued on like that for another minute before Tori's voice interrupted them once again.

"Um, it's getting kinda late, and I was wondering if you could drive me ho—"

"It's not that far a walk," Jade snapped, pausing briefly to glance at Tori before hungrily recapturing Beck's lips with her own.

Beck barely suppressed a laugh. Jade may have toned down her aggression earlier, but she was still the same old Jade. And although he knew that Jade's response had been rude, he was too preoccupied with the feisty brunette in front of him to feel guilty. In fact, he was slightly grateful for it: although he would never have said anything, he certainly preferred kissing Jade right now to waiting fifteen minutes while she drove Tori home. Her reaction to Tori's words had simply saved him from having to think of an excuse.

He heard Tori mutter something about "trying not to swallow each other" as she stalked off, but Beck didn't care. All he cared about was wrapping his arms around the girl in front of him, pulling her closer to him as they continued to kiss passionately. She was still smiling slightly; he could feel her fingers beginning messing up his hair, one of her favorite things to do when they were making out. Finally, everything was right with the world. Suddenly Beck couldn't remember how he had ever wanted to make it through another week without Jade – strong-willed, possessive Jade, who drove him crazy and still left him wanting more.

After several long minutes (or possibly hours), Beck reluctantly broke the kiss again. They were pressed up against the RV now, Jade's body squeezed between Beck and the cold metal door of the minivan.

For a second, there was only silence as they looked at each other. Finally, Beck opened his mouth to say something.

"I should go to the hospital – check if my Dad is okay."

Jade nodded and he could practically see the gears whirring in her brain. He knew she wanted him to stay, but he also knew that she felt really guilty about the dog incident. She may have been incorrigible at times, but Jade was smart enough to know that not letting him see his father wasn't exactly going to win her points.

"Wait here until I get back?" He looked her straight in the eye.

She nodded. "Okay," she said. She kissed him one last time and then watched as he climbed into his car and drove away.

…

Nearly two hours later, he pulled back into his driveway. Fortunately, his dad was alright, although he certainly had a few new scars to show off. Not so fortunately was the fact that his dad now officially hated his girlfriend. Not that his dad had been a huge fan of Jade before, but still. This was going to be an interesting relationship.

As he stepped out of his car, he noticed that the lights in his RV were on. He wondered whether it had been smart telling Jade to stay in his RV while he was gone – he didn't exactly want to come back and find all of his lampshades cut up, or something like that.

Beck opened the door, reassuring himself that she wouldn't have cut up anything truly valuable (right?). His first sight was of Jade, lounging on his couch and watching some old re-run on his television. She raised her eyebrows when he entered, but otherwise didn't say anything.

He looked around, trying to surreptitiously survey if anything was damaged. To his surprise, his RV looked tidier than it had before the dog attack. "Oh yeah, I straightened up some things that the dog…did," she said quickly.

He sat next to her. "_Two_ nice things in one night?" he teased.

"Don't get used to it," she snapped, but her voice lacked its usual ferocity. Beck grinned. He loved messing with her. This incident would not be forgotten.

They sat like that for a little longer, Jade's head resting against his shoulder, watching The Fresh Prince. Beck couldn't believe how nice and comfortable it felt, and how much he had missed _this_, this constant physical interaction, even though they weren't saying anything at all (actually, he almost preferred it this way sometimes, although he would never tell Jade that). When the show finally ended and the beginning notes of the _Roseanne_ theme song started, Jade rolled her eyes, groaned, grabbed the remote without asking, and flipped through the channels. Finding nothing interesting (his cable was a bit spotty in the RV), she turned off the television and turned to face him.

"Why did you tell Tori that you were happier without me?" she asked, her voice sounding small again. Beck winced. He had hoped that she wouldn't ask him this – but, of course, he had known that it would come eventually.

"I don't know," he said honestly. "I think—I think I wanted you to suffer a little. Since, you know, you did break up with me." She nodded. "But…it isn't always easy, Jade." He felt her stiffen slightly. "Not that I don't want this, I do. It's just—it's hard always fighting."

Jade didn't respond right away, mulling over his words. Even though what he'd said was true, Beck didn't like the look on her face. He softened his voice as he continued. "I _like_ that you're different from other girls. I like that you hate compliments, and that your idea of being nice is giving me a can of lemonade. I just wish you could…relax sometime, you know? I like when we aren't fighting." He paused.

"The other reason was…that part of me was just trying to convince myself that I didn't miss you as much as I did." She looked slightly mollified at these words, but was still unnervingly quiet.

"I don't want to fight all the time," Jade said finally. "But come on, Beck, what was I supposed to think? She was texting you all the time!" He looked at her pointedly and she crossed her hands over her chest, a little haughtily. "I suppose I could tone it down, though…a little. Sometimes." He nodded, eyebrows raised.

"But…I don't want you riding in her convertible. Ever again."

He knew that this was as good of an apology as he was going to get. He didn't mind.

"Tell me you love me?"

The question startled Beck, but he responded instinctively, without thinking. "Magic word?"

"Please?" And even though she answered in the same pleading voice she always used, he still smiled slightly at the politeness that only he could bring out.

"I love you," he said and their lips met once again. They stood up, still kissing passionately, and made their way across the cramped RV to Beck's bed.

Just before they sat down, Jade broke apart. "And don't you ever forget it," she said, and Beck grinned. _Just like old times_, he thought, pulling her onto the bed.

…

**So, what did you think? It's my first Victorious fanfic and I tried my best to keep everyone in character. I probably watched a clip of this scene at least twenty times while I was writing this…no joke; I didn't want to get any of the details wrong (haha). I thought it was especially funny that when Jade is somewhat rude to Tori ("it's not too far a walk!") Beck doesn't seem to mind at all. Watching Avan's facial expressions during the scene were interesting.**

**On a different note, I remember at one point that Liz Gillies and Leon Thompson (Jade and Andre) were talking on Ustream about how much they dislike when Roseanne comes on after the Fresh Prince, so I thought it would be funny to include it.**

**Press the pretty little review button! Not sure what episodes I'll do next, but it's summer and I have time so I promise there will be more chapters soon.**


	2. His Neighbor, the Cheerleader

**So this is set during/after "Wi-Fi In the Sky," which is by far one of my favorite episodes just because it's so funny. (Literally – I laughed **_**so hard**_** when Sinjin was in Jade's house. And at the cheerleader). It's written, as always, in third person, but the omniscient character shifts between Beck and Jade.**

**Also, just an FYI – this is by far one of the longer chapters I'll write. There was a lot of material here, so I just wrote what I felt like, but in general, chapters are going to be a lot shorter than this. Regardless – enjoy!**

…

The first thing Beck noticed was that Jade looked hot even over video chat. Unfortunately, there were two things wrong: one, he had a project to and couldn't afford to be distracted, and two, she was also in a bad mood which, unbeknownst to both of them, was about to get worse.

"His neighbor, _the cheerleader_." Andre's gleeful voice cut through their video chat.

"Cheerleader?" Jade asked icily, without a trace of humor.

Beck closed his eyes in exasperation. "Why? Why would you say that?"

Andre muttered an apology, but it was too late. Despite Cat's cheerful attempts to diffuse the tension ("You know what cheerleaders have? Pep." "Pep?" "Did she say pep?"), Beck watched Jade's eyes narrow and knew that she wasn't going to let this new piece of information slide. He had known that she would be grumpy after he hadn't returned her call, but now that the "cheerleader" had been mentioned, her obvious jealousy was only going to make it worse.

"Why are _you_ doing favors for a cheerleader, and what is _she_ doing for you?" Jade's cutting voice killed any response that Cat might have had.

Beck sighed inwardly. "It's not what you think, she's just—" he began, but Jade cut him off.

"I'm coming over there." And despite Beck's attempts to placate her, she tossed her head and cut out of the chat.

Beck restrained himself from groaning, but closed his eyes once again in annoyance, turning his head slightly. This was going to be a long night.

…

He had known the minute he'd heard the knocking. As Jade's shrill voice rang out, he didn't even flinch, only sighed in frustration. This _so _was not the time.

"Open the door!" Beck saw Tori's eyes widen in surprise as Jade's voice pierced the air.

"Is that Jade?" Tori asked incredulously.

Beck sighed. "Yeah." In a louder, slightly irritated voice, he called, "I'm busy working on a project!" At least the door was locked. Normally he would have been mildly amused by the scenario, but they really had to get this script written and he wasn't about to sacrifice his grade just because Jade was in another one of her jealous rages.

"I need to _talk to you!_"

He shrugged. "Sorry," he responded nonchalantly. "Door's locked." He almost grinned to himself, imagining her reaction. He wasn't going to let her in unless she agreed to calm down.

The words had barely left his mouth when he heard a crunching of metal. The door to his RV swung open and Beck rolled his eyes. Of course she had managed to open the door. She was Jade West.

He paused a moment, trying to figure out an appropriate response. "And now it's not locked," he continued, his voice betraying his annoyance.

"She has a key?" asked Tori, and Beck almost laughed at the surprised look on her face. Oh, Tori. Like Jade needed a key to get where she wanted.

"No, she has a foot," he answered. Truthfully, he wasn't particularly angry that Jade had broken down the door, nor was he surprised. But it would have been nice if, for once, Jade could have kept her cool and let him explain, instead of flying off the handle. Like always.

He heard Jade stomp up behind him. "What is going on?" she demanded, hands on her hips.

He responded indignantly. "You just _kicked_ my door open!"

She ignored him. "Put the dog down and tell me about this cheerleader chick who lives next door."

"I'm _not_ gonna put the dog down!" he responded defensively. At her snide response – "oh, aren't you?" – an idea crept into his mind. Fine. He would show _her_ how ridiculous she was being.

Clutching the dog to his body, he responded. "If you want to meet the cheerleader, she'll be back any minute to pick up her dog." There. That ought to placate her.

"Then I'll wait for her!" Jade threw herself onto the bed behind him, crossing her arms. Beck, for his part, pretended to be irate, rolling his eyes. He loved messing with Jade, but she completely deserved this one.

"Whatever you want."

This was going to be good.

…

Jade tossed her hair angrily, leaning against the footboard of Beck's bed. This _cheerleader _chick, whoever she was, was going to get a nice dose of reality when Jade's foot came into contact with her sorry ass.

She hadn't really been that angry at Beck when she'd requested a video chat. Sure, she'd been bossy, but she was always bossy, and she knew Beck didn't care. The message she'd left had been _important_, for crying out loud – her Dad had actually been willing to talk about a play she was interested in – and she was annoyed that Beck couldn't be bothered to call her back. Obviously, she hadn't really thought that he wanted to break up with her. But it irritated her that Beck had prioritized something like _homework_ over something so obviously important to her.

Finding out about the cheerleader hadn't been in her plans, of course, but it certainly all made sense. Beck hadn't called her back because he knew she would have wanted to come over to talk, and he hadn't wanted her to know about the cheerleader. Who was obviously trying to get with him. Seriously – who asked their ridiculously hot next-door neighbor to watch their _puppy _while they were at practice? Nobody, unless they were trying to hit on him. It was a good thing that Jade was coming over – she clearly needed to establish better boundaries around _her_ territory. Maybe breaking down Beck's door had been a little bit unnecessary, but he shouldn't have had the gall to lock her out once he knew she was on her way over.

Jade sighed impatiently, jiggling her foot. She could hear Vega's annoying voice in the background as she, Beck, and Andre worked on their dumb script. Beck was still cuddling that stupid puppy. When was this skank going to get here already?

Suddenly, she heard a new voice, one that sounded suspiciously like Sinjin's. She looked up as the sound, and noticed that an image of Sinjin's head had indeed joined the other chat windows on Beck's computer screen. As Tori and Sinjin argued about airplane windows, however. Jade suddenly noticed something strange.

"Hey, wait a minute." Jade kept her voice calm and composed, but she had a sinking feeling in her stomach as she walked over get a better look at the screen. "Sinjin?"

His face his entire chat window as he leaned in close to his computer screen. "Hi Jade," he said eagerly. Next to her, she saw Beck tense, knitting his eyebrows together. Either he was annoyed by Sinjin's very obvious crush on her (possible), or he was anticipating that she would berate Sinjin and make the situation uncomfortable (also possible).

"Where did you get that lamp?" she asked, forcing herself to keep her voice calm. Next to her, Beck blinked in surprise, but he still looked suspicious.

Sinjin suddenly looked uncomfortable. "Um…at…the lamp store," he answered, his voice wavering. He shifted nervously.

"It looks exactly like the lamp I have in my den at home." _It couldn't be_, she reassured herself. Even Sinjin wouldn't be creepy enough to steal furniture from her house. In the other chat windows, Andre and Tori both looked confused. They clearly hadn't had a lot of experience with Sinjin's bizarre fixation with her.

"Oh…weird." Sinjin had leaned back now, anxiously biting his lip, and Jade noticed the wallpaper behind him: familiar black leaves on a white background. The fireplace and chair, she realized with horror, were also recognizable.

She had been wrong. Sinjin was way creepier than she had given him credit for.

"Are you _in my house?"_ she shrieked. Next to her, Beck closed his eyes, looking surprised and uncomfortable. Tori and Andre simply looked stunned.

Sinjin was quiet for a minute. Then suddenly, he bolted, leaving them staring at Jade's empty living room chair.

"Take our computer with you!" she burst out angrily. Beck hadn't said anything, but she could tell by his expression that he was just as weirded out as she was. Sinjin yelped something – it sounded like "please don't tell my mother!" – but she was so angry she didn't care what he said. What the _hell_?

For a second they were all silent. Then Tori said something about resuming their project, and Jade debated with herself for a bit: should she go home and make sure the little dweeb was out of her house, or stay to meet "the cheerleader?" After a moment, she decided that her relationship with Beck was more important than the possibility that that little weirdo was hiding out somewhere else in her house. As Beck and Andre resumed their project, Jade went back to the end of his bed, crossing her legs sullenly.

…

Beck and Tori were getting desperate. Andre had already been kicked off the computer by his grandmother, leaving only the two of them ("and me!" said Jade) to write the script.

"Let's just get an F and be done with this," groaned Tori.

"Aww, come on," Beck said reassuringly. "We can finish the script ourselves."

"You really want to?"

Beck nodded. "Sure. Why don't we just try—"

There was a knocking at the door again, and Tori rolled her eyes. "Now what. Is that your cheerleader friend?"

Beck didn't say anything, but he certainly hoped so. He couldn't wait to see the look on Jade's face. "Come in," he called innocently.

"Yeah, COME IN," snarled his girlfriend, smoothing her hair defensively. Beck looked down at the puppy in his lap so she wouldn't see the amusement on his face.

His nine-year-old neighbor climbed into the trailer, smiling sunnily. "Hi, Beck!" she exclaimed happily, walking over to him.

"Hi, Ally," he answered, enunciating the word so that Jade could make out the slight smugness in his tone. He Jade's jaw drop as she took in the site of his tiny blonde neighbor in her cheerleading uniform.

"Jade, this is my next-door neighbor, Ally," he said pleasantly, trying hard not to laugh at the expression on his girlfriend's face. Jade's eyebrows were knitted together – whether in anger or shock, he couldn't tell – and as hard as he tried, Beck was unable to stop the amused smile from crossing his face. "Ally, this is my girlfriend Jade." His tone was playful, but he couldn't keep a hint of _I-told-you-so_ out of his voice. Behind him, Tori snickered.

"Nice to meet you!" said Ally sweetly.

Jade's tone was deliberately polite. "Hello, Ally," she said, forcing a smile. She looked as if she had swallowed a lemon, and Beck turned around so that she wouldn't see how much he was relishing this moment.

"Thanks for taking care of Sparkles!" Ally said. Beck handed the puppy back carefully. He was slightly relieved to have it gone—it had peed on his _bed_, for crying out loud—but he wasn't about to give Jade the satisfaction of knowing that he didn't like dog-sitting. "Anytime, kiddo!" he answered.

As she took the puppy back, Ally leaned in towards him mischeviously. "Your girlfriend's pretty," she whispered, just loud enough for Jade to hear. Beck almost choked on his laughter. This just kept getting better.

Beck snuck a look at Jade and forced himself to keep a straight face. "I know," he whispered conspiratorially. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Jade's lips purse.

"See ya," he called as Ally walked away. Then he leaned back on the pillows and waited for Jade's inevitable reaction. As she walked up to him, his mouth twitched; he couldn't hold in his laughter for much longer. This entire incident had been priceless. _And necessary_, he reminded himself. She had completely overreacted about the "cheerleader" comment, and he felt slightly satisfied that she would, for once, see that she didn't need to be so jealous all the time.

Jade sat down irately, clearly embarrassed but unable to admit it. "Wow, Jade, looks like you got some competition there," said Tori mockingly from the computer.

Beck nudged her arm playfully. "You gonna say you're sorry?" he teased.

"You didn't tell me she was_ nine_!" protested Jade angrily, throwing her hands up in the air. Beck had known that she would react defensively instead of apologizing, but he was still satisfied at her obvious embarrassment.

"You didn't give me the chance," he responded, eyebrows raised.

"Oh, don't try to turn this around on me!" Jade's voice was indignant now, and Beck nearly threw his hands up in exasperation.

"Hey!" interrupted Tori, but neither of them was really listening.

Beck and Jade both spoke at once. "You love making me jealous," Jade exclaimed, just as Beck said "Why would I start to do that?" And just like that, they were full-on bickering, although Beck was enjoying himself more than usual. He loved watching Jade struggle to defend herself when she knew she was wrong.

They continued to argue, although Beck had a hard time containing his laughter. Jade tiraded right through his mild protests: "Why do you push my buttons? You could have said she was nine and I wouldn't have gotten upset but you had to go and—"

"Could you guys fight later?" interrupted Tori desperately.

"Stay out of this, Tori!" Jade snapped shrilly. Beck looked away so that he wouldn't feel so guilty over blatantly ignoring their project, but it didn't really matter; Jade had turned off his webcam and slammed his laptop shut.

"Hey! My computer!"

"Maybe if you weren't so focused on your stupid project in the first place we wouldn't be having this argument!"

Beck responded, but his words were half-hearted; they both knew that Jade was going to lose this argument. He could tell, however, that she was determined to continue on anyway. At last, she paused to take a breath, narrowing her eyes angrily, and Beck took advantage of the momentary lapse. "I just wanted you to understand that your jealousy is a little bit ridiculous sometimes!" he said quickly.

"So you embarrass me in front of Vega?"

"No, I just wanted you to see firsthand that it was completely unnecessary to freak out!"

"I think you just love making me jealous!"

Beck paused at that one. Although he could have defended his own actions to the death, it was true that he enjoyed messing with Jade, if only because he knew that she would usually overreact. He knew that she knew that, as well. So he tried a different approach.

"Do you really think you ever need to be jealous?"

He could tell that the question had caught Jade off-guard. "What?" she asked, her voice coming down a few octaves.

A smile flitted across his face as he watched her try to mentally shift gears. "I said, do you really think you need to be jealous all of the time?"

"Well," said Jade defensively, and then paused. Beck watched her triumphantly; he loved when she didn't know what to say. "Girls are always hitting on you," she said finally.

"Really," said Beck, raising his eyebrows.

"Yes, really! And you're really good-looking, and you have great hair, and a lot of girls want in on that and I know what girls are like, Beck, they'll all think that they can get with you if I don't stop them! And I know you know it bothers me that girls hit on you all the time, but you still love using them to push my buttons!" She was talking quickly again, gaining momentum.

"Jade." He cut her off. "You seem to be missing something important."

"What?" she demanded.

"Do you really think I would _let_ any other girl get with me?"

"That's not what I meant! They all _think_ they can and—"

"That wasn't the question." Jade stopped, looking at him. "Do you really think I would let anyone else even think that they had a chance to be with me when I'm already with you?" When she didn't respond, he lightened his tone. "Don't you trust me?"

"Of course I trust you," she said quickly, and Beck could tell that she was struggling to re-build an argument against him. "It's them I don't trust! Because, you know—uh—you're really hot and stuff…" She trailed off.

"Oh, really?" he raised an eyebrow and she swatted his arm.

"Don't flatter yourself," she said, although her bossiness was half-hearted at best. She crossed her arms again and leaned back sullenly. Beck tried not to look too triumphant at his victory. He leaned in closer to her, enjoying the way her expression softened despite her best efforts to look bitter.

"Do you really think I _want_ any other girl? That I would actually let a _cheerleader_ take your place?"

Jade was silent for a minute, but he could see her relaxing. He was about to say something else when she looked up and caught his eye, an innocent look on his face. "No," she said in that sweet, innocent voice that she saved only for him. _Damn it_, Beck thought, but it was too late; he could already see the victory written all over her face as his words died in his throat. One look into her eyes and all he could think about was—well, her.

As if pulled by an invisible hand, Beck leaned forward and caught her lips with his. She responded eagerly, almost frantically, and they fell backwards onto the bed.

After a few long minutes, it was Jade who broke the kiss, though hesitantly. "You know, you don't need to make me jealous," she said breathlessly. "Stuff like this works fine for me, too." She smirked.

"Nah," Beck said. She stiffened slightly, but relaxed as he kissed her forehead. "You have to be jealous sometimes. Otherwise I'd be the only jealous one in our relationship."

Jade looked confused. "Who would you ever be jealous of?"

He looked over at the computer in mock concern. "Well, if Sinjin keeps sneaking over to your house in the middle of the night…"

"Stop it!" she snapped fiercely. "_Never_ make that joke again." She glared at Beck, then groaned. "Oh god, he was _in my house_! What the hell? What if he's still there?"

"I'm sure he's gone," said Beck. Truthfully, he hadn't been honest; it would be a long time until he was jealous of _Sinjin_. But he was still more than a little weirded out by the thought of dude sneaking into his girlfriend's house at night, and he could tell that Jade felt the same. A thought occurred to him.

"If you're worried that he's still there…you could always stay here," he teased. Jade looked mollified.

"Okay," she said with a shrug.

And with that, she caught his lips again and they resumed their activities on the bed.

…..

**So I know the part with Sinjin wasn't necessary, but I really wanted to include it because it's so funny – I almost spit out soda the first time I saw that part of the episode. Again, this is probably the longest piece I'll write in a while, but I enjoyed getting inside the characters' heads.**

**I have a few more ideas for other chapters (one that's almost finished), but if anyone has any "missing" or extended scenes from the show that they want to see explored, let me know using the pretty button below. Thanks for reading!**


	3. Mellow and Content

**So this chapter takes place at the end of "The Diddly Bops." Just something that came to mind, since there was that cute moment between Jade and Beck in the middle of the performance. At some point, I might also explore Beck's perspective, or what happened afterwards, but I kinda like it the way it is, so I'm going to leave it for now. It's third person, as usual, but omniscient to Jade.**

**Unfortunately, it's really short, but I didn't want to draw it out and make it feel forced. However, I'm already almost done the next one and I promise it's longer. Enjoy!**

…

It was rare, Jade reflected, that she and Beck had moments of peace, of simple contentment without any sort of bickering or conflict resolution. Especially since, right now, they were watching a performance involving Vega, which normally would have made Jade even more sullen and sarcastic than usual. Yet as they watched Andre and Tori perform, Jade couldn't help the smile that flitted across her face, and found herself swaying and clapping along with the rest of the crowd. Next to her, Beck cheered enthusiastically as Andre broke into the chorus.

She may have had her issues with Tori, but Jade West didn't have a personal problem with Andre (especially since he seemed to have a thing for Tori, and anything that kept Vega away from Beck made Jade happy). When she complained to Beck about having to sit with "them" at lunch, she was usually referring to Vega and Robbie, not Andre or (well, not usually) Cat. She'd felt sorry for Andre right along with the rest of them when the record producer had turned him down, toning down her usual sarcasm and even offering rare words of comfort to him. Sure, she'd torn off Rex's arm right afterwards, but it had been in defense of Andre, so that had to count for something, right?

Actually, all things considering, Jade thought she'd been pretty tame these last few days. This probably had something to do with the fact that Beck hated the Diddly Bops just as much as she did, so she really hadn't had any reason to argue with him about any of it. Of course they'd had their usual minor fights ("You didn't notice my new hair streaks. Are you saying you don't notice how I look?" "She wasn't flirting with me, I was just giving her back the book I borrowed," etc.), but things had been fairly calm between the two of them during the week.

Now, with the music playing in the background, everything just felt so…_nice._ Even Vega wasn't annoying Jade as much as usual, despite the fact that she was throwing her arms up and down and flipping her hair on stage in a way that Jade would have normally found really, _really_ irritating (seriously, Tori had to be the worst back-up singer _ever_—didn't she know that for once, she didn't need all of the attention on her?).

_Whatever_, Jade thought. She never would have said it aloud, but she was genuinely impressed that Andre had managed to turn their unfortunate kids' song into something so _good_. It was soft and melodious, and the atmosphere was calm and relaxed. As much as she hated to admit it, Vega's voice intertwined well with his, and if it wasn't for Vega's stupid stage antics she might have actually enjoyed watching the two of them perform more often.

After a few moments, she looked sideways at her boyfriend, knowing that he would be enjoying the performance just as much as she was. Beck was smiling widely, a full-out grin instead of the lazy smile that usually played on his lips. She secretly loved to see him smile like that – he looked really cute when his whole face lit up. The smile, combined with the wind ruffling through his hair, made him look even hotter than usual. The sight didn't exactly make Jade want to burst with joy or anything—did anything, really?— but she did allow herself a small, contented smile as she turned back to the stage to watch Andre.

As Beck's arm snaked around her shoulders once again, Jade became acutely aware that Andre's song was, in fact, a love song. She leaned into Beck, swaying with the music, and for a second, they were just like any other couple. By no means, of course, did Jade want to be one of _those_ couples who listened to sappy love songs all of the time, but since these kinds of romantic moments were exceedingly rare for them, Jade figured she should enjoy it while it lasted. She sighed, feeling wholeheartedly relaxed for the first time in a while.

After a moment, she felt Beck's hand on her chin. Gently, he guided her face towards his. She smiled into the kiss as their lips met, and for a minute the crowd around them was gone, and it was just the two of them.

Usually when Beck kissed her it was either deep and passionate or quick and chaste. This kiss, however, was different – short, but sweet and full of meaning. As they broke apart, Beck hugged her closer to him, gently kissing her temple as she leaned into his side again. Secretly, she loved it when he did that: it was possessive, yet sweet, a reminder of how much he cared about her. She leaned into him; their fingers, his on her shoulder, intertwined. Jade couldn't remember the last time she'd felt this mellow and content.

It was moments like these when she wondered why they bickered so often in the first place. For once, Jade didn't feel the need to argue or wheedle or assert any sort of ownership over Beck. She didn't need him to prove that his love when simple gestures like these made it obvious, didn't have to make him tell her how much he cared about her. In that moment, it was just the two of them, supporting their friends and enjoying each other's company, and nothing else mattered.

Of course, Jade knew that they couldn't be peaceful all the time; things would get too boring. Arguing was their thing, and Jade knew that no matter how bad their verbal sparring sometimes got, both she and Beck would get bored if everything was perfect, all the time. Bickering spiced everything up, kept things unpredictable.

But every now and then, it was nice to have these moments, too.

**A/N: Anyone else ever entertained by the way Victoria Justice acts when she performs? I don't have a problem with it or anything, but I find it funny how she always whips her hair and throws up her arms dramatically when she sings, like she's the heroine at the climax of some action movie or something. Especially since she was supposed to be singing backup here, but basically attracting just as much attention as Andre the way she flipped her hair around.**

**Anyway, I know this is short, but it was something I felt like writing and I felt like making it any longer would have been dragging it out too much. I did miss writing dialogue, though, so the next few chapters will probably be a bit more extensive. In the meantime, I'm going on vacation for a few days, so I probably won't update, but I'll do my best!**

**-C**


	4. Something You Want to Talk About?

**First of all, a huge thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed my story! It means a lot to me and all of the encouragement is really helpful. A few people left requests for specific episodes, and I'll try to get to those ASAP because they sound like fun – there's just a few more episodes that I'd like to do first, because I've had them in my mind for a while. **

**Also, sorry it's been a few days – I was on vacation with no internet. I'm pretty busy this summer, but I'm going to be travelling a lot before going back to college, so updates might be less frequent. However, I promise I'll continue to add new chapters when I get a chance.**

**This particular piece takes place during the episode Robarazzi. For some reason, I find it a lot easier to write from Beck's perspective than from Jade's (maybe because his character isn't as strongly-defined as Jade's, so the "in-character" boundaries are a bit looser), so this is, for the most part, Beck's perspective. However, there is some of Jade's, and one part from the POV of someone else entirely (which was really fun to write). Hope you like it!**

…

"It's Robarazzi! Your home for up-to-the-minute, tasty gossip about the students at Hollywood Arts."

"Oh my god," muttered Tori. Beck felt Jade and Andre tense as well. Cat alone seemed impervious to Robbie's words, humming cheerfully as she paged through a catalogue.

"Next on Robarazzi: Tori Vega's pimple—shrinking…or _growing_?" The image zoomed in on a picture of Tori's annoyed face. As he watched Tori self-consciously grab her chin, Beck teasingly reached to poke her face. She swatted him away with a "don't touch it!" and he retreated, hoping that he hadn't annoyed Jade by messing with Tori. Fortunately, his girlfriend's eyes were still focused on the screen.

"Also, does Andre Harris have a _ketchup _problem?" The camera panned in to a shot of Andre holding a gigantic ketchup bottle. Okay, Beck conceded, that one was bizarre. They all looked at Andre, but he looked just as bewildered as everyone else.

"Does Sinjin Van Cleef steal famous teeth? Probably," Robbie continued. Beck knew he wasn't alone in raising his eyebrows thoughtfully; so far, this "rumor" was the only one that sounded remotely close to being true. By this point, he knew enough about the kid to understand that anything, no matter how bizarre, was plausible when it came to Sinjin Van Cleef.

Beck snapped back into the present when he saw a heart-shaped photograph of himself and Jade on the screen, holding hands. As they watched, the heart snapped down the middle, and the background music became more dramatic. "And finally…is it splitsville for Beck and Jade?" Robbie asked in a scandalized tone. Considering how poorly thought-out the rest of the stories had been, Beck wasn't particularly concerned by this "news," but he knew that his girlfriend would be. He glanced at her and stifled a chortle at the sudden fury etched across her face. If this wasn't a perfect opportunity to get under Jade's skin a little bit, nothing was.

"All this, and tons more…on Robarazzi! Starring Robbie Shapiro."

The end of the broadcast was cut short as Tori smacked the computer's power button. "He's a dead man," she declared, standing up angrily. Andre and Jade stood up as well.

"Beck and I aren't _splitting up_!" Jade's indignant voice nearly caused Beck to laugh again, before he reminded himself that he was an actor and restrained himself.

"Well," he began in a mock-thoughtful tone.

Jade didn't even give him a moment to breathe. "Dude," she said pointedly, and he raised his hands in mock-surrender.

"Kidding."

"I use an appropriate amount of ketchup!" Judging by Andre's tone, Beck was the only one who wasn't really bothered by Robbie's latest broadcast. Well, excluding Cat, who was excitedly perusing the Sky Store catalogue and probably hadn't heard a word that Robbie had said. Vaguely, Beck wondered why Robbie hadn't bothered to include Cat's new shopping obsession on his blog.

"Let's go fix this right now." The words had barely left Tori's mouth when everyone began to grab their belongings. One second later, Beck found himself following Jade out of the room. "Cat, are you coming?"

Distantly, Beck heard Cat start jabbering about floating underwear. Without bothering to look at the others' stricken faces, he turned and followed Jade and Andre down the hall.

For Robbie's sake, Beck hoped that Robbie was prepared to face the wrath of his friends.

….

"Hey!" Tori shouted as she barged through the door. All eyes turned as the four of them marched into the room.

"I don't use any more ketchup than the next guy," Andre bellowed. Next to him, Jade crossed her arms, surveying the room contemptuously. Beck reminded himself to look annoyed as Robbie began to stammer a reply.

"Whoa, whoa, hold on, guys, we're in the middle of taping my show!"

Robbie's feeble protests were cut short by Jade's loud voice. "Beck and I are not splitsville!" she declared, pointing a finger dangerously at Robbie.

Beck couldn't resist. "Well," he began, but once again he didn't get any further as Jade wheeled around to face him.

"_Is there something you want to talk about_?" she demanded, incensed.

He smiled and bit back a laugh; Jade made these things too easy. "Kidding," he reassured her, patting her shoulder lightly.

Robbie suddenly turned and gestured to the younger students holding cameras. "Are you guys getting this? Cuz this is really great stuff!" he said eagerly. Sinjin nodded, looking transfixed (actually, he was looking directly at Jade, but Beck was used to this by now, so he ignored it). Despite his earlier calm, Beck found himself beginning to get annoyed at Robbie. He'd clearly upset his friends, and yet he was busy trying to get more humiliating footage?

"Robbie!" shouted Tori. "You're not going to have any friends left if you keep exploiting us for your dumb blog."

"Okay," said Robbie. For a second, it seemed as if he was agreeing with her, but then he turned and began to write on his board. _Really?_ Beck thought, watching the curly-haired kid scribble anxiously about "Tori freaking out."

Tori and Andre simply looked incredulous; Jade looked murderous. Beck wondered if Robbie was really as stupid as he was acting. Suddenly, they all started talking at once.

"Is he serious?" Tori asked in disbelief. Jade laughed derisively; Beck threw up his hands and asked, "really?" Pretty soon they were all yelling furiously. Beck couldn't blame Robbie for backing up defensively, but he was angry at the sight of the cameras still rolling. Feeling pressure against his back, Beck turned just as Jade whirled around, and the two of them began yelling as overeager idiots thrust cameras into their faces.

"Stop!" Tori shouted suddenly. They all turned and glared at Robbie as Tori advanced on him.

"This is your last chance. Are you gonna stop this Robarazzi thing or not?"

Despite looking like a deer caught in the headlights, Robbie still shook his head mulishly, and Tori turned angrily.

"I think we're done here." She swept out of the room, with Andre following closely behind her. With one last glare at Robbie, Jade grabbed Beck's arm pointedly, and Beck followed her obediently as she stomped out of the studio.

…

Jade was sitting in the passenger seat, eyes closed, when she felt the convertible suddenly turn off of the road. Opening her eyes, she saw that they had pulled into a small, well-lit parking lot. A flashing sign nearby listed the names of several movie titles (the bright letters burned Jade's retinas), and people streamed in and out of the doors of the building. Jade groaned internally. She really, _really_ wasn't in the mood to go to the movies.

Beck smiled at her, clearly unaware of her dismay. "I thought maybe we could see a movie or something since we don't really have much homework. You know, instead of just going back to my RV and watching _Full House_."

Jade didn't mean to sound accusatory, but her words came out that way anyway. "You didn't tell me we were going to the movie theatre." She winced as Beck's face fell slightly, but he straightened almost instantly.

"It'll be _really dark_ in the theatre," he teased, clearly trying to get her to lighten up.

Jade remained silent. She felt guilty; contrary to what most people seemed to think, she didn't _mean_ to be a gank all of the time. She liked spending time with Beck, and normally she would have jumped at the chance to cozy up to him in a dark room for a few hours.

"It's not that," she said, and then stopped. Jade hated whining – it implied that a person was weak and helpless – but she couldn't help the whine that snuck into her tone as she pleaded with Beck.

"It's just—"

She couldn't think of what to say. How would she explain to Beck that her day had been really awful, and sitting in his RV watching _Full House_ (no matter how much she made fun of him for watching it) was exactly what she felt like doing? She tried to think of something to say, but was distracted by Beck's hair, which was enticingly dark and shiny against the night sky. Jade fought the impulse to run her hand through it as she struggled to think of a reasonable argument.

"Come on," Beck said impatiently. "Let's just go; it'll be fun." Jade could tell that he was annoyed; he had probably been planning this out all day. She felt bad at ruining his plans, but she really, really wasn't in the mood for it.

She meant to open her mouth and calmly, rationally explain why she didn't want to see a movie. What came out, however, was a whine so desperate that even Jade cringed internally as it left her mouth. "Nooooooo," she protested, draping herself against the back of the seat.

"Why not?" Jade recognized his "calm, placating" tone of voice and felt bad. She tried to think of an excuse. How could she make the thought of hooking up in a dark theatre sound less appealing?

She decided to go for the "gross-out" factor. "Cuz—I didn't shower this morning, and I had tuna fish for lunch, and—" Out of the corner of her eye, Jade noticed something moving. She whipped her head around.

"_There's a dude in the backseat_!"

….

Jason hadn't believed his luck when he saw Beck Oliver's convertible turn into the movie theatre parking lot. Though he and his fellow freshmen were just getting to the theatre, Jason knew he couldn't turn away from such a golden opportunity.

"I'll see you later," he hissed to his friends, grabbing his video-camera. Jason knew that Robbie would _freak_ if Jason actually pulled this off.

Tiptoeing behind the convertible, Jason watched carefully. There was a brown-haired girl in the front seat, and for a second Jason thought it was Tori Vega (now _that_ would be a good scoop). After a moment, though, he realized it was just Beck's girlfriend, Jade. Still good material.

He could hear the two of them talking in low voices, but he couldn't make out any of the words. Mentally cursing, Jason looked around to see how he could get closer. Suddenly, he had a stroke of inspiration: if he could somehow get _into_ the car, he'd have a perfect shot. Beck's car was a convertible, so theoretically, all Jason needed to do was climb over the backseat when they weren't looking—he thanked God that his camcorder didn't have an annoying blinking light to give him away—and stay very, very still.

As he snuck closer, Jason realized that Jade's eyes were closed as she leaned back against the seat. If Beck would only turn his head an _inch_ to the left—

It happened, and Jason seized his chance. Beck turned his head forward, looking exasperated, and Jason slipped silently over the door and into the back seat.

Miraculously, he went unnoticed, most likely because Jade's aggravated voice drowned out the sound of his body hitting the back seat. Jason paused excitedly to begin taping. Jade actually sounded human—was that _distress _in her voice_?_—and completely unlike her usual bossy self. He knew that all of the other students wondered how Beck stayed with Jade when she was such a bitch during school. Here was his chance to get the inside scoop on their relationship, and discover whether Jade truly did act differently outside of school.

He zoomed in on Beck's face. "Come on. Let's just go, it'll be fun," Beck pleaded.

Back to Jade. "Noooooo," she moaned. Score. With footage of bitchy, demanding, self-assured Jade acting like a tired, helpless child, Jason would be a school celebrity.

"Why not?" asked Beck. Jason zoomed in on Jade to get her response.

"Because—I didn't shower this morning, and I had tuna fish for lunch—"

_What the hell?_ thought Jason, albeit gleefully. This was bizarre, but it was good. He was so surprised by her response that he didn't notice that she had paused and was staring right at him.

"_There's a dude in the backseat_!" she shrieked.

Beck's angry voice joined hers. "What the—hey man, what are you doing?"

"Get out!" Jade snapped, her voice high-pitched with fury. The two of them began to shout angrily (Jason wondered if they practiced yelling over each other, since they fought so often).

Amidst shrieks of "what's wrong with you!" and "get out of my car!" Jason vaulted himself out of the back seat, still filming. "Yeah, you better run! I'm gonna kill you!" he heard Jade call after him, but it was too late; they couldn't do anything now. Clutching his camcorder in his hands, Jason sprinted into the movie theatre, smiling triumphantly. Robbie was going to _love_ this.

…

As the scrawny freshman scampered out of sight, Beck stopped yelling; after one more angry sentence, Jade did the same. They both paused in the darkness, breathing deeply.

Jade spoke first. "What the hell was that stupid kid doing? Seriously. What the _eff_?"

"Was that even a boy? I couldn't tell because of the hair."

After a moment, Jade answered, "I think it was a boy." Her voice was still raised, but he could tell her shock and anger was wearing off. "It's that stupid freshman, Jason something. He works for Robbie."

Beck suddenly remembered why the kid had looked familiar: he had been one of the people shoving a camera into their faces the other day when they'd attacked Robbie. Apparently, Robbie's spies were now following Beck and Jade around to get pictures of them. _Great_, he thought. How much had the kid heard?

Apparently Jade was thinking the same thing. "He heard me say I didn't shower this morning," she hissed. "And the tuna fish thing! What if the whole school sees that?" She wrung her hands anxiously, and Beck could see that beneath her anger, she was actually worried that others would see the video, making her look less than threatening. Jade West didn't do _vulnerable_ or _whiny_ or _idiotic_; she confidently demanded respect from the masses. Beck knew that an embarrassing public video would rattle her, even though she would probably act as if she couldn't care less about it.

"I'm sure it won't make it online," he reassured her, rubbing her arm comfortingly. As he reached for her, something else crossed his mind.

"Babe? Uh…why were you telling me about that anyway?" Jade looked confused at his question, so he elaborated. "You know, the shower and tuna fish thing?"

Suddenly Jade looked uncomfortable, and Beck remembered how unlike herself she'd sounded earlier, whining about the movie. "I just thought—you know, in dark theatres, things happen sometimes, and that it was only fair to warn you because maybe you wouldn't be in the mood to be in a dark theatre with me if you knew about the whole 'shower and tuna fish thing,' and—"

"Jade." Beck cut across her rambling. "What is the real reason you don't want to see a movie?" She opened her mouth to protest, but he continued. "I know you showered this morning. Your hair was wet when you got in the car."

"Oh," she said after a moment. Suddenly she looked sheepish. "Well, okay, I just thought that, you know, hooking up in the back of a dark movie theatre would sound a lot less…good…like that," she finished lamely.

Beck raised his eyebrows. He wasn't used to his blunt, direct girlfriend skirting around issues with him. He was bummed that she hadn't liked his surprise trip to the movies, but they'd missed the start of the film because of that stupid kid anyway, so he might as well find out why Jade was so opposed to the idea. He looked her directly in the eye. "Jade. Why don't you want to go to the movies?" When she didn't say anything, he pressed on. "I know the tuna fish was just an excuse."

"I just…I don't know," she said defensively. Beck just looked at her, waiting for her to go on. "Fine. I had a really bad day and sitting with you in the R.V. watching TV actually sounds…kinda nice."

Beck's eyebrows arched even higher. Jade actually wanted to hang around his R.V. watching "lame television?" He couldn't remember the last time they'd done so without her complaining heavily.

"What, exactly, made it so bad?"

He knew she was trying desperately to come up with a suitable excuse. She didn't like to admit to any weaknesses, even to him, and he knew that whatever was bothering her, she would pretend it was nothing. Beck reached forward and cupped his hand around her chin, pulling her face upwards so that she was looking at him. "Jade," he said, more gently this time. He felt her sigh, but whether in frustration, relief, or resignation, he couldn't tell.

"I just didn't get much sleep last night, and then breakfast sucked because I got into an argument with my dad, and even though I had a lot of coffee I just feel…drained." She looked at him hopefully, as if she was willing him to accept this bit of information and move on. When his facial expression didn't change, however, Jade just rolled her eyes and continued.

"And then these _stupid girls_ kept coming up to me all day and basically asking me if we were still together. Because Robbie said we were breaking up. And they wanted to know if you were single, and I got sick of telling people _all day_ that I still had a boyfriend. Even Sikowitz made fun of me about it. The day just…sucked and I'm tired of it. I just want to do something relaxing and familiar that doesn't involve being around my parents or other people."

Beck was mildly amused at the image of Jade surrounded by girls asking about him. Girls were always hitting on him; he wasn't surprised that they had resorted to pestering Jade over whether or not Beck was available. He felt slightly bad about teasing her earlier.

Still, on a normal day, girls like that would merely be an irritation, not reason enough to ruin Jade's entire day. There had to be something else.

"What did your dad say to you this morning?"

Jade blinked, looking surprised. "That he thinks I'm stupid," she said flatly. "And that he doesn't understand how people can stand to be around me. Especially since I'm rude and arrogant for thinking that I can make a career out of acting or singing." She punctuated the last sentence with an eyeroll. "I slept like an hour and the freaking coffee—which _you_ didn't put enough sugar in—didn't help."

That explained it. On a normal day, Jade couldn't care less about taking crap from people, especially desperate girls, but Beck knew that one of her few sources of insecurity (aside from their own relationship) was her rocky relationship with her parents. Especially her dad. Beck had only met the man a few times, but they hadn't been pleasant encounters. That had to be the reason she was so cranky.

"I don't really care," she said quickly. "I just…relaxing sounded nice."

Beck nodded. "We missed part of the movie," he reassured her. He switched the car into gear. "I'd rather go back to my place anyway."

….

Jade sighed contentedly as she rested her head on Beck's shoulder. They were snuggled up on the couch, watching (to Jade's pretend irritation) DJ and Stephanie Tanner's earnest heart to heart. She rolled her eyes at the cheesiness, but was still content to stay where she was. Curled up against Beck, watching crappy television, she allowed herself to forget how unpleasant the day had been.

She'd meant what she'd said earlier; the day had worn her out. This was exactly what she needed to do—nothing involving homework, school, or people in general, only her and Beck, with nothing to do but kill time. Still…something was bothering her. She wanted to check her Slap page, and post some update hinting that Beck was still _hers_ and make everyone jealous that they were having a nice time together. Just in case some of those girls from earlier needed a reminder that Beck was taken.

"Gimme your laptop," she ordered, and Beck passed it to her obediently (his eyes were still glued to the television).

She logged into her page and was about to update her status when she saw that she had been "slapped" in a video. She clicked on the video, and the word ROBARAZZI filled her screen.

_No_, she thought, horrified, as Robbie's face filled the screen. "Noooooo," she groaned out loud, feeling her temper rising as she saw that annoying long-haired _freak_ who had been taping them in the back of Beck's car, jabbering excitedly about filming the two of them. "Beck!" she snapped, and as he saw what she was watching, his normally cool demeanor turned shocked and angry.

They sat in stunned silence. Jade could only think of one thing to say.

"I am going to_ kill _that little creep_._ And Robbie. And Tori Vega._"_

**I had a lot of fun with this – mainly, because when I saw the episode, I was like, "why would Jade mention not showering and eating tuna fish?" Jade sounding whiny and insecure was unusual enough, but it seemed like a bizarre thing to say unless she was deliberately trying to make herself sound unappealing. I think it's funny that Schneider puts a few "suggestive" lines and situations into his shows, so I ran with it. **

** Also, writing as that random freshman was fun as well. I figured he would have the same thoughts about Beck and Jade as the majority of **_**Victorious**_** viewers, so it was fun to write from his perspective as well. Hope you liked it!**


	5. A Case of the Sinjins

**Hey guys. Sorry it's been a little while; I've been busy. I'm going away again and I'm not sure about the quality of the internet I'll have, but I'm going to try my best to do something next week as well. **

**This chapter is for BlondeMascaraPrincess, who asked me to explore more of Sinjin's creepiness towards Jade. I've been wanting to do something with the videos on the Slap for a while, so this particular chapter isn't based on an actual episode. Instead, it's based off of a video on the Slap called "Sinjin's Sock Puppets: Jade." It's pretty funny (although Jade is a lot calmer in it than I expected. haha). You can watch it at .com/clips/sinjin-s-sock-puppets-jade for context if you haven't seen it.**

Andre Harris was already having a weird day when he walked by the scene.

He'd been late for class, narrowly dodging an empty coconut shell (flung at him, of course, by Sikowitz) before being "volunteered" to perform a skit where he was abducted by an alien that looked like his sister. When he got to his locker, he found that someone had left a red painted fingerprint on the keyboard. And Cat, who was in his second-period composing class, had spent the entire time babbling something about her brother being stabbed and defending himself with a piece of sushi. Andre needed a break. He was looking forward to a nice, normal lunch with his friends when a voice from a nearby classroom caught his attention.

"Hi, I'm Sinjin. I, uh, wanted to put some videos up on the Slap, on my page, because that's what most of the other kids at Hollywood Arts do." Sinjin's thin, unsteady voice echoed out a partially-closed door and into the hallway. Curious, Andre leaned through the doorway and peered into the empty classroom. A strange sight greeted him.

Sinjin was sitting ramrod-straight, staring right into a camera being filmed by none other than Robbie Shapiro (Rex sat on a table behind him, observing). Andre noticed that he appeared to be wearing gloves, but since his hands were folded underneath the table, Andre couldn't make out exactly what was on them.

"I call this video…Sinjin meets Jade. As performed by puppets," intoned Sinjin. Andre's eyes widened as Sinjin slowly sank below the table, until only the tip of his mop of hair remained. Sinjin then raised his hands, which Andre saw were covered not by gloves, but by sock puppets.

Andre's mouth dropped slightly. One of the puppets, obviously supposed to represent Sinjin, had a shock of curly hair and glasses; the other had long brown hair with red streaks. With a sickening feeling in his stomach, Andre saw that the second puppet appeared to have a piercing on its left eyebrow.

Andre had known that Sinjin had an almost-obsessive crush on Jade—hell, almost everyone knew about it. But this was an entirely new level of creepy, and he knew that Jade wouldn't be pleased. Silently, he debated whether or not he should tell her about the puppets—until he remembered that Sinjin had mentioned posting the video on the Slap. Somehow, Andre didn't think that Jade would react well to the entire school watching puppet-Jade meet puppet-Sinjin. And if Jade found out that Andre had known about it beforehand…

His mind made up, he turned and strode off down the hallway. Jade's locker was just around the corner.

…

Jade's lunch period had started off well enough: she had met Beck at her locker, and they had shared a rare private moment of quiet laughter before Beck closed his locker and wrapped his arms around her. "I missed you last period," he murmured, leaning in. Their lips met, when suddenly—

"Jade!"

They broke apart, and Jade turned, mildly annoyed, to see a startled-looking Andre rushing down the hallway.

"What?" she snapped, irritated. The one time Vega wasn't interrupting them, _Andre_ was calling her away?

Taking in Andre's stunned face, however, Jade felt some of her anger dissolve, replaced by a faint sense of curiosity. "You better come now," he panted, straightening up. He looked her in the eye. "It's Sinjin."

That did it. Her anger with Andre evaporated; inwardly, she groaned. Normally, she would have ignored Andre and resume where she and Beck had left off. But with Sinjin in the picture, everything was different. She knew, probably better than anyone, that his obsession with her bordered on stalking (he had broken into her house, for Christ's sake). As a result, she took any and every chance she got to squash any Jade-related behavior. She couldn't tell how bad this was based on Andre's face alone, but she had to take the opportunity anyway.

"Okay," she said. She felt Beck's hand loosen slightly in surprise, but judging by the look on Andre's face, this was something serious. For now, Beck could wait. She flashed him an apologetic look (his expression was still unreadable), and then took off after Andre around the corner.

Jade had known that whatever Sinjin was doing, it was bad. But she hadn't expected this.

As they peered into the room, she couldn't see Sinjin's head, but she could see puppets acting out a scene on a table, and Sinjin's telltale voice told her that he was the one operating them. She wasn't close enough to get a good look at the puppets, but Sinjin's words were enough to give her pause.

"Oh Sinjin, cuddle me." The girl puppet on the right spoke in a high-pitched falsetto.

"No." The puppet on the right shook his head. _And I thought Robbie and Rex were weird_, Jade thought, dumbstruck.

"Why not?" The scene was odd, but Jade still didn't know what exactly this had to do with her.

"Because you belong to Beck…and Sinjin don't cuddle what ain't his."

"Oh my god." The words escaped her mouth before she could stop them as she stared in shock. There was no way. No way that—

"I told you." Andre shook his head, looking as unsettled as Jade felt.

She reminded herself that Andre was doing her a favor, and that she needed to be grateful for it. "Okay, just let me—"

"Yeah, I'll just…" Andre's voice trailed off. Even if this wasn't what it looked like—and Jade hoped to God that it wasn't—it was still weird. She strode over to Sinjin, taking in the way his eyes shifted back and forth nervously, and fought to keep her voice even as she talked to him. Maybe she was feeling tamer than usual, but somehow she didn't think outright yelling was the best way to get him to listen to her in this particular situation.

"What are you doing?" she asked evenly, glaring at him. Sinjin jumped up, throwing his hands down, and faced her with a guilty expression.

"I'm not doing anything," he mumbled, avoiding eye contact. "I was just…"

"No, you are doing something. You have two sock puppets on your wrists!" She kept her voice calm, but her accusatory tone made him flinch.

"No, I don't have anything, I don't have any sock puppets."

She grabbed his wrists, and her voice rose in anger. "Really?" she asked, raising his arms so that they could both plainly see the two decorated socks on his arms.

"I was—I was just pretending, I was…"

She cut off his stammering and glared at him full-on. "This not right, okay? It's not right for you to do this, okay?" She felt like she was reprimanding a four-year-old, but she reminded herself that Sinjin clearly had a screw loose or two, so she was doing him – and Hollywood Arts – a favor by being so blunt.

"I wasn't hurting anybody," he protested feebly, but she ignored him, instead looking at his hands. A quick glance at the puppet on his left confirmed her fears: the female puppet had red streaks in its hair and a telltale piercing in its eyebrow. She looked at him in dismay.

"Is that supposed to be me?"

"I don't know," said Sinjin quickly.

"Is that on?" Her voice rose again as she directed the question at Robbie.

"No." Robbie's voice was timid and Jade felt her irritation grow.

"_Is that on?"_ she demanded, enunciating every syllable.

Robbie's voice was barely above a whimper. "Yes?"

"Turn it off," she commanded, pointing her finger dangerously. At his meek "why?" she threw her bag down and grabbed the camera. "Turn it off right now."

"It's my camera," he protested, but she wasn't having any of it. "Turn it off!" she shouted, grabbing the side of the camers. With a beep the camera lens closed.

Jade turned to Sinjin, her expression disdainful. "I don't know what the hell you think you're doing, but this is _so wrong_ that it's not even funny. _I am with Beck_. And even if I wasn't with Beck, I wouldn't be with you!" Jade didn't care how harsh her words were; they needed to be said. She turned and walked quickly out the door, oblivious to Sinjin's desperate apologies.

Something else hit her as she reached the door, and she turned around once more before leaving the room.

"Let's get one thing straight," she said. "I don't just belong to Beck. Beck belongs to _me_."

…

Beck sat at lunch with Cat and Tori, munching on his pizza as Cat went on about her brother and a piece of sushi. He couldn't understand where Jade had gone, but if Sinjin was involved, he could bet it would put her in a bad mood for the rest of the day. When he saw Andre approaching, he braced himself mentally, but he didn't see Jade anywhere.

"Why were you late?" asked Tori curiously (Beck almost smiled at the way Andre's face lit up when Tori spoke to him).

Andre looked uncomfortable as he answered. "I caught Sinjin doing weird things with puppets."

"Where's Jade?" Beck asked. Andre paused before answering.

"Well…the puppet show…it was kind of a role-play. One of the puppets represented Sinjin, and the other one was supposed to be Jade." Andre shook his head. "I think he was role-playing something about him and Jade getting together."

"Oh my god." Tori looked stricken. "That's messed up."

Beck agreed. He didn't like the feeling rising in his chest. It wasn't jealousy, exactly – he couldn't ever really be jealous of _Sinjin_ – but he didn't exactly love hearing about Sinjin acting out fantasies involving _his_ girlfriend. Still, he knew one thing would make the sinking feeling in his stomach go away.

"How did Jade react?" he asked Andre. In fact, he was surprised that he hadn't heard Jade's screams of fury through the window.

Andre shook his head. "That was the weirdest part. When she saw it, she was all cool, like, 'Andre, let me handle this.' Robbie was filming it too. I left her there to deal with them." Seeing the expression on Beck's face, he quickly added, "but I'm sure she freaked out after I left."

Beck nodded, still processing the information. Sinjin was making a puppet show. Of Sinjin and Jade, doing _things_ together. Beck kept his expression contained, but inwardly, he shuddered slightly. Obviously Jade would have set Sinjin straight, so there was no reason for him to be so—so—what, exactly? He wasn't jealous. He didn't get jealous – that was Jade's job (he almost smiled at the thought of what she would do if she caught another girl making puppets involving _him_). And obviously he knew that Jade would _never_ in a million years go for someone like Sinjin. Still…he wasn't exactly comfortable with Sinjin's bizarre obsession. First breaking into Jade's house, and now this…

He breathed a slight sigh of relief as he saw Jade walking haughtily across the pavement towards them. As she sat down, Beck instinctively threaded his arm over her shoulders.

"Everything okay?" he asked, unable to keep the playful tone out of his voice after seeing the disdainful expression on her face. He almost wished he had seen Jade yelling at Sinjin; he was sure it would have been entertaining. And probably would have eliminated this weird nagging sensation he kept feeling.

"Fine," she snapped, although she softened slightly when he laced his fingers through hers. "At least he didn't break into my house this time." She rolled her eyes and stabbed her salad angrily, daring anyone else to ask her what had happened.

Beck smiled.

…

He was waiting for her to come over to his RV when he saw it.

He had been casually scrolling through the Slap when he noticed that "Sinjin Van Cleef has slapped Jade West in a video."

_Nah_, he thought. _Robbie wouldn't be stupid enough to give Sinjin the video_. _Jade probably destroyed the camera anyway._

Still, he clicked on the video out of curiosity.

He sighed slightly with relief as he saw Sinjin awkwardly standing in front of the camera. "Hi, I'm Sinjin. I, uh, wanted to put some videos up on the Slap, on my page, because that's what most of the other kids at Hollywood Arts do."

Of course it wasn't that stupid puppet video. Even Sinjin wouldn't be that dense. Beck was about to close the computer when something made him stop.

"I call this video…Sinjin meets Jade. As performed by puppets."

Beck's eyes widened. Before he could react, however, the door to his RV burst open, kicked in by a familiar-looking combat boot. The rest of Jade soon followed as she climbed into his trailer.

"Hey. Way to call me earlier," she said bossily, before noticing what he was looking at. "Oh…yeah. _That_." She stopped, looking disgusted.

Beck knew he had no reason to be anything but secure in his relationship with Jade, but he was still thankful at the next words that came out of her mouth.

"I can't believe that little…_ugh_…that _loser_ actually put THAT on the Slap!"

And despite the viciousness in her words, Beck felt something in him relax a little bit.

**Please don't favorite without a review **

**I'll be back in a week (maybe less; I gotta see if I'll have internet while I'm away). Thanks for reading! BlondeMascaraPrincess, I really hope you liked it – thanks so much for your reviews and encouragement!**


	6. Mature People Don't Do This

**Hey everyone! Sorry for the lack of communication; I haven't had Wi-Fi access all week. First of all, thank you so much for the reviews that I have received! I'm really touched that people have taken the time to give me such positive words. You guys are the best.**

**Second of all, many people have left requests for episodes and/or clips to do. I promise, I'll try to get to them all! I have a list of the different requests people have made, and I'm going to try to get to them all before I get back to school. That being said, there are still a few episodes that I wanted to do to begin with, so I'm not sure when I'll get to each of them. **

**The wi-fi here is so spotty that I can only get internet for two or three minutes at a time. As a result, I couldn't load actual episodes onto my computer to watch, which is usually how I write these chapters. However, I was able to load short clips on Youtube and replay them even if the Wi-fi source had run out, so I was able to write this piece. Since two people have requested the end of "Beck and Jade's Relationship Advice #2," that's what this chapter will cover (I expanded it a little since I think the entire video is pretty funny, especially if you watch Beck's expression). If you haven't seen it, you can watch it on the Slap or on Youtube. Parts of the video look like they've edited out material in-between, so I watched their expressions and added what I felt like was in the original uncut video. Hopefully it's clear.**

**Enjoy! Sorry for such a long note.**

…

_Click. _ "Hey, it's me and Beck." Jade spoke through a mouthful of popcorn.

"What's goin' on?" Beck nodded his head casually, repositioning himself so that his arm was still around Jade's shoulders as he leaned against the couch. It was a Monday afternoon, and he and Jade were sitting in one of the comfortable lounges left open after school.

"I just made popcorn," Jade continued.

"Yup, the little woman sure can cook!" As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Beck knew he'd made a mistake. Like Jade would take kindly to being called "a little woman." He smiled slightly, hoping that Jade would know he was kidding.

It didn't work. Beck watched Jade's eyes narrow as she processed the comment. "Okay, that's offensive on like, every level." Her voice held a familiar demanding note, and he rolled his eyes slightly.

"It was a joke."

"Was it?" she snipped. There was an awkward pause and Beck reminded himself that they were filming themselves for an internet video.

"I'm Beck." He smiled casually into the camera.

Jade didn't miss a beat. "I'm his girlfriend, which makes him ridiculously lucky."

Of course. Still, Beck was used to comments like this; truthfully, they amused him more than anything. "So lucky," he assured her, smiling and squeezing her shoulders a little bit.

"Oh, so you're not lucky to have me as your girlfriend?"

It was official. He couldn't win.

"I _just_ said 'so lucky.'"

"You said it sarcastically."

"You say _everything _sarcastically," he said, exasperated.

"Oh, riiiight." He frowned slightly at the this, but Jade seemed to miss the irony in her sarcastic response. Still, his girlfriend had never exactly been the most logical person on the planet. Usually, he didn't mind that; in fact, it was one of the things he liked about Jade. But they were supposed to be making a video for the Slap, and he didn't feel like adding another video of them bickering (counting his profile video, they already had at least two).

"Hey, why don't we just…have a nice time together?" he asked, a note of pleading in his voice. He turned to look at her with telltale "puppy dog" eyes.

He watched as she tossed her head, considering. "Okay," she shrugged. For a second, she looked down at her hands, then into his eyes. Dammit. She always did this. Their faces were only a few inches apart, and she had known he wouldn't be able to stay annoyed at her. He was suddenly powerless, and couldn't resist leaning forward to kiss her.

What the hell. They could cut the video later.

…

After a few minutes, they broke apart. "Jade, the camera," said Beck. She sighed, but obediently straightened back up as he fiddled with the camera.

"There. I turned it off," Beck said. "Now just give me a minute—" He fooled around with the replay until he'd erased the lase minute and a half-of footage, cutting off at Jade's "okay." He looked at her. "Can we talk about couple-y things? I edited it so that they didn't see any of…that."

"What if I wanted other girls to see that? Just in case they forget who you belong to."

"_Jade_."

"Fine," she sighed. "Let's talk about couple-y things." Beck could tell that she was still annoyed.

Beck nodded. They repositioned themselves and he switched on the camera, although he couldn't keep the slight smirk off of his face. Their viewers would never know what had happened between that cut.

Immediately, Jade launched into a sentence.

"On my last birthday, which was on a Sunday, he didn't call me until two in the afternoon."

Damn her. This was payback for making them stop their, um, "couple activities" and get back to the film. Still, he couldn't believe what he was hearing. Why on earth was she bringing _that_ up?

He couldn't keep the incredulous note out of his voice. "Okay, we're gonna have _that_ fight again?"

"Not unless you start it."

God, she was so infuriating at times. Why did she do this? "You were the one who—" No, he reminded himself, this was going on the internet. "No. You know what? Let's just—" he sighed "—forget it."

"Sure, I'm _so glad_ that _you_ can forget it." Her voice was still irritated, but Beck knew he'd won, at least for now, so he pressed forward.

"Here on the Slap we take questions from other people who have relationship issues."

"And then we respond."

"With helpful advice," he continued, his voice friendly.

Jade's voice was surprisingly even as well. "It's our way of giving back to the community," she said, smirking slightly. He wasn't sure if he would describe it quite that way, but he didn't feel like annoying Jade, so he continued.

"Here at Hollywood Arts—"

"They know where we are."

He couldn't help himself. "Yeah, _why_ are you in a bad mood?" he asked, irritated. He would never understand his girlfriend's bizarre mood swings.

"Maybe because you didn't call me until two in the afternoon on my birthday!"

"That was _seven_ months ago, I—"

"Yeah but you never explained to me, I—I don't understand how a person could just—"

Beck had turned his head away in exasperation, and it took him a second to notice the Jade had abruptly stopped talking. He raised his eyebrows, wondering what could possibly make Jade shut up mid-sentence, and turned his head.

Sinjin Van Cleef peered into the camera, leaning down into Jade's face. Beck's initial surprise quickly turned into irritation as Sinjin's curly hair brushed against his girlfriend's cheek. Tightening his arm around Jade's shoulders, Beck frowned. Still, he knew that Jade was just as bewildered and annoyed as he was.

"You guys making a video?" Sinjin asked eagerly. He looked hopefully at Jade.

If he hadn't been so weirded out by Sinjin's actions, Beck would have been amused at the disgusted expression that crossed Jade's face as she recoiled and pursed her lips with a glare. Sinjin, however, definitely noticed her reaction; his brown eyes flicked nervously under her steely gaze. As abruptly as he had come, Sinjin stood up and ran off, leaving the door ajar.

They turned their heads in unison to face the camera.

"Okay," said Jade after a pause, shock still evident in her voice. "Let's read the first question and then we'll give some relationship advice."

Beck felt a sudden, unexplained rush of affection for his girlfriend. Maybe it was the fact that she was so used to Sinjin's creepy stalking that she had stared him down without batting an eyelash, and then played it off like it was nothing. Maybe it was that she rarely let anything surprise or rattle her. Maybe it was just that she had let go of their previous argument so easily, and seemed perfectly happy moving on with their video (well, as happy as she ever seemed).

Whatever it was, Beck suddenly had no desire to answer any questions.

"Nah," he said.

"Nah?"

Jade's irritation was endearingly familiar. Beck bit back a laugh, forcing himself to keep a straight face as he looked into the camera and spoke in a serious tone. "I'm going to give Jade noogies."

She sighed and rolled her eyes. "Don't be a child."

He continued as if he hadn't heard her. "If you don't know what noogies are, it's when you grab a person's head, and then you rub your knuckles on them." His voice was matter-of-fact, as if he was discussing how to build a sailboat rather than some how to play some silly game usually reserved for five year-olds.

He could see Jade processing the information. "I will call the police if you give me noogies," she said calmly. Beck knew that she was picturing what would happen to her tough-girl image if hundreds of their classmates saw her letting him give her noogies. Still, she looked like she was having a hard time restraining a smirk.

He pretended to consider her request, and then looked directly at her. "You ready?" he asked.

"Don't," Jade warned, but she smiled in spite of herself. The look she gave him was both fearsome and pleading. _We're in public. Really?_

He grinned impishly. "Three…two…"

"Beck, don't!" But she didn't sound angry. Annoyed, but also amused.

"One…"

He wrapped his arm around her neck, pulling her into him as he rubbed his knuckles against her skull. Right on cue, she began to yelp, but Beck ignored her protests. He could see the smile beginning to form on her face, despite her best efforts to stay angry.

"No! Beck, don't!" she squealed. "I will call the police!"

Ignoring her, he kept going, smiling joyfully. "Oh! Oh, it's great! It's fantastic!" He laughed as she struggled playfully, but he knew she wasn't really trying to stop him; he'd probably already have a broken nose and several broken ribs if she had truly wanted to get away.

"Do you want me to bite you? I will bite you! Beck, stop!" Actually, he thought, that might have been kind of a turn-on. She was laughing now too, and struggling less, although she was still protesting loudly. He could only imagine how people would react when they saw the mighty Jade West, rolling around on the floor and giggling like a little kid.

He rubbed his knuckles through her soft hair—how did girls do that anyway? He spent time caring for his hair, but it wasn't nearly this silky. "Oh, your hair is so soft!" he exclaimed pleasantly, with the air of one commenting on an interesting weather pattern.

"You have sharp knuckles!" she protested, but he could see her resistance crumbling. He pulled her head towards him so that their faces were only an inch apart, and she resorted to "please stop" as he scratched her head lightly.

Suddenly, he launched another attack, pulling her down onto the floor with him as he ran his knuckles furiously through her hair once again. "I'm gonna call a teacher. I'm gonna call a teacher! _Mature people don't do this!_" she screeched. He laughed and pulled her head into his lap.

"Happy birthday, no charge." He watched as she tried unsuccessfully to repress her laughter.

"Stop," Jade gasped, elbowing him, but she was still laughing. "My god, Beck, stop!"

"Resisting only makes it worse!" he shouted triumphantly.

"_Beck_!"

"IT ONLY MAKES IT WORSE!" He reached up and switched off the camera as she made another attempt to roll over and escape.

Beck expected her to protest more, but apparently she had finally given in, and was laughing too hard to form a coherent sentence. All he heard was a muffled word that sounded like "stop!" as she gasped into the fabric of his shirt. He stopped running his knuckles over Jade's scalp, and for a moment they lay in a collapsed heap on the floor, laughing weakly.

"What is _wrong_ with you?" she demanded, but her voice lacked its usual venom. Beck just shrugged deviously as she rolled onto her stomach to face him.

"What, afraid that everyone will see that the mighty Jade West enjoys getting noogies?" She glowered at him. "What?" he asked innocently. "You liked it that one night in the RV…"

"_Stop it_," she growled. "We do not _talk_ to other people about what happens when we're _alone_."

He grinned.

"I will _get_ you for that," she hissed vindictively. A smirk ghosted across her face.

Before he knew what was happening, her hands were on his sides, massaging the ticklish part right below his ribs. He gasped, but he knew that _she_ knew that his one weak spot was his stomach. A giggle escaped him. Then another. Jade only grinned wickedly as she ticked him more intensely.

He wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of begging her to stop, like she had done to him, but he couldn't restrain his laughter as well. "Ha! How do you like it now?" she taunted, leaning back and smirking as he tried to catch his breath. Just as he thought his breathing was back to normal, though, she was back on top of him, tickling his stomach. Beck's sides shook with repressed laughter as she leaned her mouth closer to his ear.

"Don't _ever_ give me noogies again when we're on-camera."

"So off-camera's okay?"

That little comment earned him a half-hearted jab in the stomach, but no response.

Beck opened his eyes to find Jade's face only inches from his own. She was practically lying on top of his stomach, with a smug look on her face. For a second they just lay there, breathing heavily, before she suddenly cupped his cheek and kissed him full on. His body responded before his could even process what was going on, deepening the kiss.

She broke it off to take a breath, and he remembered something. "Jade," he gasped, "we're at school, anyone could walk in—"

"_Shut up_," she whisper-snapped. He glanced over at the door, but it was closed. Hmm. He could have sworn that Sinjin had left it open, but apparently Sinjin had closed it after all. What the hell. There was no one around—who was going to see them anyway?

Jade's lips found his own, and suddenly his mind was blissfully blank once again.

…

Sinjin Van Cleef hurried down the hallway, hoping that he would catch Jade before she left. She had arrived at school late, Sinjin knew, so she had probably brought her own car. Meaning that she would be driving home without Beck. He imagined what he would say:

"Hey Jade, I noticed that you have a car. That's ironic, because I really need a ride home."

That sounded convincing. All he had to do was follow her until she and Beck parted…

As he neared the lounge in which he'd seen them earlier, he could hear laughter spilling out into the hallway. He'd left the door ajar after rushing out of the room earlier All of a sudden, the laughter stopped abruptly, and Sinjin assumed that they had finished the video. Maybe, he thought excitedly, he could help Jade clean up the equipment. Only a few more seconds until he reached the doorway…

Sinjin stuck his curly head through the door and nearly fainted.

Jade was lying on top of Beck, kissing him hungrily like there was no tomorrow. A small squeak of horror escaped Sinjin. It didn't matter that he saw Beck and Jade kissing on an almost-daily basis. He still hated seeing her with _him_.

Sinjin backed up and closed the door behind him as quietly as he could, rushing down the hall.

**Fin. Hopefully I did it justice. This video and Drive-By Acting are my favorites, so I had a lot of fun. I always thought it was funny that the camera cuts in the middle of the video, and Beck suddenly looks a lot happier than he did before, so I just…filled in the space.**

**I can't guarantee when the next chapter will be up, since I'm on vacation, but hopefully within the week! Thanks for reading.**


	7. Let's Do It

**Hey all. I'm back in a place with streaming video and Wi-Fi, so hopefully I'll be able to update a few more times before I go back to school in a few weeks. Before I forget – if any of you are also iCarly fans, Dawnmist of River Clan started a similarly-structured fic called iThink There's More for iCarly episodes, so go check her story out! You can read it at .net/s/7249188/1/iThink_Theres_More#.**

**Anyway—this chapter takes place after the pilot episode. I've been wanting to do it for a while, but I've always been hesitant since I have really mixed feelings about the episode. On the one hand, I understand why Tori wanted to get back at Jade, because the coffee thing was pretty awful, especially since Tori hadn't knowingly done anything wrong. On the other hand, kissing someone else's **_**boyfriend**_** seems like a little much to me. I was actually pretty shocked that Dan included something like that in the show's pilot episode. Also, Beck's expressions during the kiss were interesting (to say the least), so I decided to get into his head for most of the chapter.**

**This chapter is dedicated to tstoain and AliceAnn, two wonderful reviewers who had both requested a chapter on this episode. I really hope you guys liked my take on it!**

…

"Little weird. Let's do it."

And then, somehow, Beck was kissing Tori Vega. As he leaned in, he couldn't help feeling slightly justified in his actions—after all, Jade had poured coffee on the poor girl's _head_, for Christ's sake. Tori obviously had guts, because Jade wasn't used to people fighting back against her. Pushing away his niggling unease, he focused on what he was doing.

His classmates cheered and whistled, and mid-kiss Beck suddenly caught sight of his girlfriend's face. She looked like she'd been punched in the stomach. Shit. Instantly, his smile fell off of his face, guilt welling up in his stomach. He had known that Jade obviously wouldn't take their little stage kiss well, but Beck was still taken aback by the look on her face—a combination of and vicious fury and genuine hurt, all rolled into one. Dazedly, he pulled back from Tori, running his hand anxiously through his hair.

"Man, I love this school!" Tori giggled. Beck caught a quick flash of victory in her eyes and felt worse. He wasn't sure how he had gone from lying "unconscious" on the floor to kissing the girl standing in front of him, but somehow he didn't feel quite as triumphant as he'd anticipated.

Uncertainly, he made his way back to his seat. Jade turned away.

He couldn't see her expression, but he could feel the cold fury radiating from Jade's body as she haughtily crossed her legs and turned her back to him. Shit. He was really screwed now. As the clapping died down, he saw that most of their classmates were either doing one of two things: shooting Tori admiring and/or jealous looks, or eyeing Jade to gauge her reaction. Beck still couldn't see Jade's face, but he assumed that she glared right back at them, because most of them turned away hastily as soon as they caught her eye.

"Wow," said Sikowitz enthusiastically, drawing Beck's attention back up front. "That was excellent!" He beamed. "Tori, you really have the hang of this alphabet thing! I especially liked your _spontaneity_. And Beck, that stage kiss was pretty convincing, too—"

There was a loud scraping sound as Jade stood up and whirled around, knocking her chair over. Head down, she half-ran to the door, slamming it so hard that Beck felt the classroom shake a bit. His stomach sank uneasily as he took in Jade's expression: anger (and probably some sort of desire to make sure he would never have children), but also heartbroken pain. He swallowed, feeling another wave of guilt wash over him.

"Huh. Kids these days. So sensitive…" muttered Sikowitz, chewing idly on a plastic straw. Tori Vega turned to look at Beck; her happy expression had vanished, and she looked about as guilty as he felt. She stood up nervously, and in a split second, Beck made up his mind.

"No." The words left his mouth before he realized. "I got it." Tori nodded mutely, face still flushed, as Beck turned and echoed his girlfriend's path out of the class.

Jade wasn't in the in the hallway anymore, that was for sure. Beck knew that Jade only ever cut class when she was legitimately upset, usually due to some combination of her rocky relationship with her parents, school frustrations, and her own insecurities. On a normal day, Beck would have been the first person to offer her any sort of company or comfort.

Not this time. This time, he _was_ the cause. His stomach squirmed guiltily again.

Jade wasn't exactly innocent, he reminded himself. In yet another an extreme overreaction, she'd poured coffee all over Tori's head on her first day, simply because Tori had been trying to wipe coffee off of Beck's shirt. Although, in fairness to Jade, Tori had definitely blushed awkwardly as she introduced herself to Beck. It didn't justify the coffee—not even close—but Tori had been flirting with him a tiny bit.

Plus, he'd seen the victorious look in Tori's eyes as they'd leaned into the kiss. He certainly didn't think Tori was a bad person, and he couldn't blame her for giving as good as she'd gotten from Jade (truth be told, Beck admired her nerve). But at the very least, Tori could obviously take care of herself, and Beck wondered why he'd felt compelled to help her gain revenge.

He looked into empty classrooms, lounges, even the girl's bathroom. No Jade. Jade's locker, however, was still ajar when he passed it, so he was definitely headed in the right direction. Peering inside cautiously, Beck saw that her "emergency scissors," which she usually stashed on the top shelf, were missing. This wasn't exactly unusual; Jade cut up a lot of things when she was angry, so most likely she was currently slicing up some unfortunate prop or stack of papers. But it made finding her even more important. The last time she'd been mad at Beck, she'd cut up his favorite shirt_ and_ his gym shorts (how she'd gotten into his gym locker, he had no idea).

With a pang, he noticed that the photo of the two of them, which usually adorned the inside of her door, was lying on the floor, ripped in two. He sighed, running his hand through his hair again, and checked the janitor's closet across the hall. Empty. He had been sure that she would be in there, resolutely slicing up a trash can (or something like that), and he didn't have any other idea where to look.

The bell rang, making him jump as students suddenly streamed into the hallway. Beck was dimly aware of Andre and Tori coming up behind him, laughing about something. They quieted instantly as they saw him.

"Hey, man," Andre said, clapping Beck on the shoulder. "So…you didn't find her yet?" Next to him, Tori looked at the floor.

"No. I looked everywhere and I can't figure out where she could have gone."

"Dunno, man. Maybe she left?"

"Nah." Beck shook his head, trying not to let worry slip into his voice. "I drove her this morning. She doesn't have a car."

"Beck, I'm…sorry I upset her." Tori's voice was hesitant, but Beck knew the words were genuine. He could have yelled at her for her using him in her revenge against Jade, but that seemed extraordinarily hypocritical, considering that he had been very willing to participate. Plus, he could tell that she really did seem to be upset that she'd upset Jade so badly. So Beck just nodded, craning his neck over the crowd in an attempt to spot Jade's brown and red locks among the sea of students.

The bell rang again and Andre and Tori muttered apologies as they left for class. Beck heard Andre mutter some comforting words to Tori, and she laughed. Before Beck knew it, he was alone in the hallway again.

Just as he was debating going to class—he was Jade's ride home, after all, so she'd have to show up sometime—he caught a flash of brown hair out the window above the staircase. Jade. He hurried out the door at the end of the hallway.

His girlfriend was sitting on the pavement in the shadow of the building, leaning against the wall. In her hand were several fake daisies (stolen, Beck assumed, from the props department) and a pair of scissors; at her feet rested a pile of sliced leaves, stems, and fabric petals.

"Go away." She spoke without looking at him. Beck ignored her, walking over to her.

"I said _go away_." She hadn't realized it was him yet.

At the sound of his footsteps still approaching, she looked up. Beck saw the flash of surprise on her face as she saw who it was, but it faded almost instantly, replaced by the fierce anger he'd seen earlier. He stopped and leaned against the building cautiously.

"Hey."

"No." Her tone was so scathing that he almost flinched. Jade looked down at the flowers in her hands again, her curtain of shiny brown hair obscuring her face. "_You_ don't getto talk to me."

"I just want—"

"I said _no_. I don't want to talk to you. _Leave_!"

They stood in silence for a moment, the scissors still in Jade's hand.

"Jade, please listen to me."

"What part of 'I don't want to talk to you' are you not getting? Or has _she_ made you too stupid to understand plain English now?" Angrily, she turned her back to him.

"It was just a stage kiss, I swear."

"_I don't care_!" She spun around, brandishing the scissors in his direction, and Beck took a slight step backwards. "First you let her _rub you down_ on her first day, and then you let her KISS YOU? In front of everyone?" Her voice, which had started out calm and cutting, rose shrilly at the end of her sentence. Up close, Beck could see that she was a mess. Her eyeliner was smudged, and although she had obviously tried to wipe it away, he could still see traces of mascara running down her cheeks.

He had made her _cry_. Jade never cried. She had obviously tried to hide it, so he pretended not to notice the tear tracks down her face. He felt even worse now.

"I'm sorry!" He knew the words were inadequate as they left his mouth. For a second, neither of them moved, his apology hanging in the air between them.

"I don't care." Her tone was harsh and cutting. "I don't want to talk to you."

"Jade, please let me ex—"

"I said no!" He swallowed, willing himself to remain calm. "Go sit in class with your precious Vega and see if I care!"

"Come on. You know I don't care about her like that. I want to stay out here with you."

"I'm not going back there, and you're not staying here." When he didn't move, she narrowed her eyes angrily. "_Go_!"

She picked up the flowers and turned to leave.

"Wait. At least tell me that you'll let me drive you home so we can talk?"

She laughed humorlessly. "Yeah, you wish. Why don't you give _Tori_ a ride instead?

"But—"

"I'll walk home!"

She turned and stomped off around the corner of the building, and Beck heard the door swing shut again. He wondered if it was worth it to go after her, or if he should give her some time to cool off before trying to talk to her again. Part of him wanted to keep following her until she talked to him, but another part of him—the logical part—knew that Jade wasn't likely to respond well to that kind of gesture, and that (for his own safety, maybe) he should let her calm down before approaching her again. He glanced at his watch and made up his mind. He'd go to his final class, and find her afterwards. Sighing, he made his way down the hall and slipped into his History of Jazz class.

_Any luck_? mouthed Andre from a seat to his left. Beck shrugged noncommittally, and Andre gave him a sympathetic look. When the bell rang twenty minutes later, Andre waited for him in the hallway.

"Let me guess: she won't talk to you," said Andre.

Beck sighed. "Yep."

"Sorry, man," said Andre.

"It's fine. To be honest, I kinda deserve it."

"Yeah…although she _was_ asking for it a tiny bit," said Andre defensively. "I mean, who pours coffee on someone's head in front of the whole class? It was Tori's first day!"

"Yeah, but that…improv _thing_…was the wrong way to get back at her."

"Yeah, I guess." Andre shook his head. "Nobody deserves that." Catching sight of Beck's face, he added, "but I'm sure it won't be that big of a deal, you'll fix it."

"Yeah, well, I gotta find her and talk to her before she leaves," said Beck.

"Good luck, man."

"Thanks."

Beck quickly grabbed his books and headed out towards the parking lot. He wasn't sure where he'd find Jade (or if he'd find her at all), but he was going to try.

…

As the hallway cleared out, Jade ducked out of the teacher's lounge she'd been hiding in and darted into the janitor's closet. She'd tried to go in there earlier, but there'd been a creepy man asleep in the corner (…), so she'd gone outside instead. The sudden surge of students into the parking lot, however, had sent her scurrying back inside. Like she really wanted to hear their stupid annoying laughter as they got into their cars. They were probably all laughing about what Beck and that stupid _Vega _chick had done in Sikowitz's class.

It had been an hour since that girl had kissed _her_ boyfriend. In front of the entire class. And worst of all, he had kissed her back. In her mind's eye, she could still see the little smirk across his face right before he and that _thing_—ugh. She shuddered inwardly.

Jade had to hand it to Tori Vega: as far as revenge and public humiliation went, this little scheme was pretty damn good. But Vega had gone too far. This was Jade's school, and new girl or not, she wasn't about to let some little brat go after her boyfriend.

_If_ he was still her boyfriend.

Jade's eyes narrowed as she re-imagined the kiss in her mind's eye for about the thousandth time. What the hell was Beck trying to do? He'd baited Jade like this before, teasing her to make her jealous; it was just the dynamic of their relationship. But this…he'd never gone this far before, never done something to deliberately hurt her. It didn't matter that his expression afterwards was about as close to "oh, shit!" as she'd ever seen on his face. She was going to fucking _kill_ him.

Jade had really thought that she would be able to keep it together for the rest of the class. But hearing everyone else _cheering_, with their obnoxious stares and giggles—as well as Sikowitz's little comment on her boyfriend's "performance"—had been too much to take at once. So rather than let everyone see how upset she really was, she'd bolted at the first sign of stinging in her eyes. She'd been humiliated enough without the entire class seeing her cry.

Now, sitting in the janitor's closet, Jade wished she'd brought something more substantial for her scissors to cut. As odd as it sounded, Jade found that the simple action of slicing things up—shirts, papers, whatever—was the perfect mindless distraction whenever she was upset. Angry over losing the lead role? Shear a few curtains. Pissed at her dad? Chop up a broom or two.

_Boyfriend kissed another girl in front of everyone?_ She'd never had to come up with a solution for that one before.

Cutting up the fake flowers had worked for a little while (not that there was any symbolism in flowers or anything; she just hated flowers), but she'd finished them soon enough. She thought about Beck's startled face when she'd told him to go away, and smirked bitterly. Good. He could take his little apology and shove it, because damned if he thought she was just going to forgive him like that.

To distract herself, she took out her mirror and concealer, slumping against the wall as she dabbed at her face. Ugh. Crying, to Jade, was like sweating: she didn't like it, so she rarely did it. Thus, the fact that Vega and Beck had both made her cry (in school, no less) only made her want to dismember both of them even more. With gratuitous violence.

Vega was going down. That much was certain. And Beck? She'd think of some suitable punishment for him once he had thoroughly explained how sorry he was. _If_ she ever even let him talk to her. Which was seriously questionable right now.

Plus, of course, that assumed that he wanted to talk to her. Sure, he'd tried earlier, but who knew what he had been going to say? His actions didn't exactly say "I love you." More like "I'd rather be with this girl that I'm conveniently kissing in front of you and the entire class."

With renewed anger, she grabbed the nearest rag and began hacking it to pieces.

…

Beck had looked everywhere in the parking lot, but no one had seen any sign of Jade (although Sinjin had offered to help him look for her. He'd turned the proposition down). He was starting to wonder whether or not she truly had found another ride home, but he doubted it. Anyone that Jade liked enough to ask for a ride would have seen or heard about his little improv scene with Tori. Either a) she had taken public transportation (unlikely), or b) she was still somewhere in the building (more likely).

Just for good measure, he glanced into the window of the janitor's closet. Relief washed over him. Jade was perched on the floor, scowling as she methodically sliced up a rag.

Knocking seemed pointless; she'd just refuse to let him in. So he eased the door open and stepped into the tiny room. Jade ignored him, but attacked the rag slightly more viciously as he cautiously sat down on the floor.

"Hey," he said softly.

Silence.

After a minute, he tried forever. "Jade, come on. You can't ignore me forever."

She glared at him, but merely finished cutting up the rag she had and moved onto another.

"Can't we talk about this?"

More silence. If anything, her gaze was more furious than before.

"I'll get you some coffee right now if you'll just talk to me." When even this didn't warrant a reaction, he went for the obvious. "I'm sorry!"

She twisted around, fuming. "If you want to break up with me, why didn't you just tell me?" she spat.

"I don't want to break up with you!"

"Well, you've got a funny way of showing it," Jade snarled.

"It was just a stage kiss!"

"Oh really? So 'stage kisses' go on forever now? While everyone else _cheers_ and your girlfriend is five feet away?"

"I'm sorry!" he said again. "I screwed up!"

"Yeah, you did!"

"How can I fix this?" Desperation edged into his voice. He knew Jade was stubborn, but he had thought she would have calmed down by now.

"You can go back in time and make it so that you never kissed Vega," she said resolutely.

Crap. He wasn't getting anywhere. It was with deliberate calm that he asked his next question.

"Jade. What can I do to convince you that it didn't mean anything to me?"

"I don't know. Tell me why you felt the need to humiliate your girlfriend in front of everyone?"

"I don't know!" He paused, because he really didn't know what had come over him. "One minute I was on the floor and then I was…you know." Jade raised her eyebrows, but otherwise didn't respond. "I was…annoyed that you overreacted," he said finally. "I mean, seriously. You _poured coffee_ all over Tori just because she spilled on me and tried to clean my shirt—"

"And that gives you the right to cheat on me in public?"

Obviously, she wasn't going to make this easy. "It wasn't _cheating_; it was acting!" For good measure, he added, "I was being an alien!"

This line of argument was clearly getting him nowhere.

"Andit didn't mean anything. To me or To Tori." Jade looked at him doubtfully. "Really. It didn't," he said, his voice softer. "And I'm sorry that I hurt you. I was being really stupid."

"Yeah, you were."

"I swear, I don't want to break up with you. Do you want to break up with me?"

She shrugged and fingered the scissors, avoiding his eyes. "No."

"So just to be clear…we're not broken up?"

"No." She looked up at him. "But I'm still mad."

"I know." He paused. "And I'm sorry."

"God, Beck, it was like—like a movie or something. Vega looked right at me with that stupid little smile before she asked you to kiss her, and you just—you just _let her_." He winced, nodding guiltily. "And then they all _cheered_ and I just—I couldn't stay there…"

She trailed off, her voice dropping as the hurt shone through her words. Beck felt even worse. Jade never seemed bothered by classmates' opinions on their relationship; as stupid as it sounded, he hadn't even thought about the fact that there had been other people in the room.

"I don't care that they all think I'm a raging bitch." She laughed harshly. "But these people don't even have the _tiniest_ bit of respect for the fact that _I'm_ your girlfriend? They just _laughed_ at the fact that my boyfriend was cheating on me!" Her eyes flashed angrily.

Beck decided that pointing out the whole "it-wasn't-cheating-it-was-acting" thing again wouldn't earn him any brownie points.

Jade was quiet again, and Beck wasn't sure what to say next. Instinctively, he reached in and wrapped his arm around her. She stiffened, but fortunately didn't protest as he pulled her into his side, and Beck was secretly relieved that she appeared, at least for the time being, to have forgiven him.

"Come on. Why do you care? You've never cared what they thought before."

Jade mumbled something undetectable into his shirt.

"Sorry, didn't catch that," he said, trying to sound cheerful.

"No one respects the fact that you're _mine_." She glared. "Not even you."

He sighed. "Jade." He turned so that he was facing her again. "I love _you_. Not Tori. You. Who gives a damn about anyone else?"

"Apparently you do. Since you, you know, kissed her."

"Can you just…accept my apology?" He couldn't think of anything else to say.

A pause. "Fine," she muttered. Beck grinned.

"I'm still gonna kill you. And Vega." She glared at him, but it was half-hearted at best.

"It's okay, I kind of expected it."

"Shut up."

Beck stood up, pulling Jade to her feet as he did so. "Want to get some coffee?"

She smirked, and Beck couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so relieved to see the familiar expression on her face.

"You're buying. For like, the rest of the week."

**Thanks for reading! **

**I tried my best to keep it in context without mischaracterizing Tori badly, because I'm pretty sure both she and Beck would have felt really guilty after the fact. (Actually, I watched the ending scene a few times, and I'm pretty sure Beck's thinking "oh, shit!" after he kisses Tori. Just my interpretation). I actually really like Tori as a character, and I don't like when she's vilified in fics simply because she's a (possible) romantic interest for Beck. Hopefully I did alright keeping everyone in character.**

**(To the 56 people who have this story on alert but don't usually review…I really appreciate that you're reading, but I would love any feedback that you have. Positive or negative—it all helps. )**


	8. Are You Dating Anyone?

**This is just something quick that I thought of the other night. I've always thought that the Bade kiss in "The Wood" (the one in the intro of the episode they watch) was really cute because they're both smiling kind of goofily, which isn't something Dan usually puts on the show. So I decided to write the scene when it was shot. Then I realized that there are a **_**lot**_** of potential missing scenes in that episode, such as why Beck changes his mind and decides to try out for the show. Plus how Jade gets that one girl fired (haha).**

**Also, credit to Dawnmist of River Clan for suggesting that I take a second look at this episode – I usually overlook it, so the inspiration was well worth it. **

**Enjoy!**

Beck, Tori and Robbie met Jade at her locker.

"Why did your older sister just run by me shouting like a crazy person?" Jade pointed at her shirt, clearly disgruntled. "She got soda on me."

Tori rolled her eyes. "She heard about this new reality show that they're filming here and freaked out. She's probably already trying to figure out what makeup to wear to the audition."

"A reality show?" Jade raised her eyebrows, unimpressed.

"Yeah, they're filming it here!" said Tori excitedly. "There's a casting session later this afternoon."

"And I suppose you're trying out?"

Tori looked slightly taken aback at her curt tone, but quickly recovered. "It could be really fun!"

"Yeah, I don't think so." Jade looked at Beck. "Are _you_ going to try out?"

He shrugged. "Nah, probably not. I'm an actor; I don't think I need something like that."

Jade looked at Tori smugly. "See? Reality shows are for talentless wannabees." She turned around, slamming her locker, but Tori wasn't fazed.

"Whatever you say. Still, I think it could be fun. Maybe they'll even let us sing or something!"

The thought of Tori singing on TV made Jade pause. If Vega was allowed to hog the spotlight on whatever little reality show they were filming here, she might get noticed by actual record producers. Whereas Jade wouldn't even have the chance. She narrowed her eyes. As much as Jade hated to admit that Tori was right, maybe the girl had a point.

"Fine." At the surprised look on her friends' faces, she looked at Beck and shrugged. "It's good exposure. If people on TV see how talented we are, maybe it'll help." Taking Beck's arm, she pulled him down the hallway as the bell rang.

Once the others were out of earshot, Beck turned to face her. "Okay. What is this really about? Beating Tori again?"

"Nothing!" Jade was an actress (and a talented one at that), but she still had trouble lying to Beck. She tried to make her voice as innocent as possible. "I just think that Tori's right, it'll be good exposure. Maybe when people see how hard we actually work, they'll take an interest."

"You're talking like you're on the show already," Beck teased as she tugged him towards their class.

She didn't even pause. "Whatever. If they take someone like _Vega_, they're definitely not gonna reject me."

…

Watching Vega audition was entertaining, at the very least. Even if Tori answered her question wrong (the _worst_ thing she'd ever done was obviously kissing Beck, not kissing Daniel. Maybe when they were on television Jade would casually bring up Tori's apparent penchant for kissing people who didn't belong to her). Andre's audition was predictable. Trina's was cringeworthy, but still amusing. And then it was Beck's turn. As he took the chair, Jade smiled eagerly.

"So, Mister Oliver, why do you like attending Hollywood Arts?"

Beck shrugged nonchalantly. "I want to be an actor."

"Interesting." The director scribbled something. "Why do you love acting so much?"

Beck paused. There was something unfair about the fact that his "pensive" look only made him look hotter, Jade thought. Still, it made her oddly proud that whatever he said, the producers would probably eat it up.

"When I was younger, I did a few plays in school and I really liked it, but I wanted to learn more about it. I did some acting when I was in elementary school, but I never really understood it." He paused thoughtfully (somewhere, Jade could hear a million girls swooning. She smirked). "So I auditioned for Hollywood Arts and came here. And then I realized: acting is more about _not_ acting. It's about letting the emotions inside of you come out and represent moments—"

"Are you dating anyone?" burst out one of the producers. Beck's eyes knitted together in surprise.

It took Jade a second to realize what had happened, because she'd actually been enjoying the honesty of Beck's answer. The speaker was a short brunette in a sparkly tank top (which was completely tacky; who wore something like _that_ in public?) with a computer perched on her lap. Jade bristled, her smile quickly replaced by a scowl.

"Katie," warned the producer.

The stupid gank smiled. "I just think we should know if he has a girlfriend," she simpered. Jade could have thrown up at the fake-innocence oozing from the girl's voice. "Katie" whipped her head around, intensity in her eyes. "_Do you_?"

Jade felt a slight surge of satisfaction as her surrounding classmates shifted uncomfortably. At least _they _knew not to ask whether Beck had a girlfriend. She doubted Beck would ever go for some gank who wore a sparkly little top like that, but she glared at him to make sure he got the message. If he said _anything_ to lead this stupid girl on…

Beck still startled at the question, but looked pointedly at Jade as he responded. "Yeah, I do."

"_Dang it_!" Jade's prickled at the vehemence in producer-girl's voice. Someone clearly needed to teach "Katie" a lesson.

When it was her turn, the producers asked her an easy question: what she hated (A harder question might have been what she didn't hate). Still, this was a perfect chance to show Little Miss Tacky Producer Girl her place. So Jade started off with her basic list of dislikes, making sure that her tone was light enough to be funny. She didn't doubt that she would be picked for the show, but she didn't want to kill her chances either. Just in case.

Slowly, she steered her list towards more relevant things that she hated. "Bras that hook in the front…the color yellow…carpeting." She glanced up and saw that the producer seemed pleased by her response. Good.

"Black sparkly tank tops…whiny people…" She stopped. "But you know what I hate the most?" She looked directly at Katie while the producer leaned forwards. "Desperate little girls who can't find a man for themselves_, _so they hit on _my_ boyfriend Beck instead." She frowned. "Especially when they do that in front of me. Because that _really_ pisses me off."

Katie looked like someone had slapped her. Jade smirked at her. "Anything else you want me to answer?" she asked the producers.

"No, that's…everything," said the producer. Jade was pleased to see that he also appeared to be biting back a laugh. With that, she strode over to Beck (who looked fairly amused as well), grabbed his arm, and walked out. The last thing she saw was the stunned faces of everyone else in the room.

….

"Why not?" Trina begged. Trina's voice, Jade decided, altered between two states: annoyingly whiny or annoyingly shrill. Today she was seemed to be channeling both states.

"Because you reek of desperation." The producer dropped his gaze.

"That's her natural scent," Beck piped up.

As irritated as she was, Jade couldn't resist the proud smile that spread across her face at Beck's unusual display of sarcasm. Maybe she had more influence over him than she'd originally thought.

Beck and Jade left lunch early, under the official pretense of learning lines for their acting class. Jade was happy; it had been a while since they'd snuck out of lunch early, under the guise of homework or practicing or whatever, to steal a few quiet moments to themselves while the hallways were still empty. In other words, to go make out in the janitor's closet. Or in front of Beck's locker. Whichever was more convenient.

Feeling unusually lighthearted, Jade held his hand tightly as they made their way down the hallway.

"So…" she said teasingly. Beck raised an eyebrow, but otherwise didn't respond. She punched him in the shoulder.

"We're going to be on a reality show together." She smirked.

"Yep." Beck didn't sound too concerned.

"So we'll have to act like exaggerated versions of ourselves," she continued. Beck nodded absently and Jade felt herself growing annoyed.

"Which _means_ you'll have to kiss me on camera," she commanded. "A lot."

"Okay."

"Okay? That's all you think about it? It's just 'okay' that you get to kiss me? I don't want crazy-producer-girl getting any wrong ideas here."

Despite himself, Beck grinned. "I knew that was still bothering you. Why didn't you let that go? You embarrassed her enough back there."

Jade tossed her head. "Please. She hasn't seen anything yet."

"Just don't do anything too mean." It had been a while since they'd enjoyed this kind of lighthearted banter, and Jade felt herself relaxing once again. This was going to be an enjoyable ten minutes…

A thought crossed her mind. "Speaking of mean…that thing you said about Vega's sister. I approve." He laughed, pulling her close.

At that moment, the bell rang. Students began to fill the hallway again, and Jade groaned internally, knowing that they were about to be permanently interrupted. Beck, however, either didn't know or didn't care that they were now surrounded by other people, because he leaned in anyways.

"You approve, huh?" he murmured into her ear, smiling. She felt a smile tug her lips, and she wrapped her arm around his neck, pulling him in so that their lips met gently. Jade couldn't keep the playful grin off of her face. Maybe they wouldn't have time to do everything she'd originally wanted, but they could make out in the hallway for a few minutes, right?

Beck kissed her again, more intensely this time, and Jade wrapped both of her arms around his neck. The kiss became deeper, more intense, and Jade was just beginning to enter the blissful "make out" state of mind when they were suddenly interrupted by a crash close by.

"Oops!" They broke apart to see a chubby man, who had evidently tripped into a locker while holding a camera. Behind him, the head producer of the Wood was leaning against the lockers, talking on a cell phone. Color flooded Jade's cheeks.

"What are you doing?" she said icily.

The chubby man looked up. "Oh, well, you're that couple, right? The one for the show?" When neither Beck or Jade said anything, he continued. "I was told to get some shots of the kids just…doing what they do, and that certainly looked like something that a couple should…do." He shrugged. "So, keep going! I got the very end of that, but our viewers will want to see more."

"No!" she said irritably. The cameraman mumbled something unintelligible.

"Sorry, what was that?" Beck asked, more politely.

The man looked embarrassed. "Oh, I just thought it would be funny to show this to Katie." He looked at Jade. "Didn't she hit on your boyfriend or something?"

Jade felt a smirk slide across her face again. She hadn't thought it of it that way…but this really was a great opportunity to get back at that stupid girl again. She looked at Beck, who was still expressionless.

"Well…okay then." Jade turned back to Beck, wove her hands through his hair, and was all set to continue their previous activities when the bell rang again. They were now officially late to class.

"Sorry," said Beck. "We really have to go." He pulled her down the hall.

And although Jade was annoyed to miss the chance to embarrass stupid _Katie_, she was also slightly relieved. Making out with a camera shoved in their faces was weird.

As she passed the main producer, she noticed that the he was speaking vehemently into his phone. Something about how hard it was to be a single parent now that some woman named Dorothy had gone. Interesting. She wasn't sure why, but somehow she had a feeling that this information would come in handy.

…

Beck wondered idly what Jade had been doing upstairs in Tori's house, but he hadn't bothered to check on her. He figured she was probably just trying to mess with Tori again. So when Jade flippantly remarked about the "things" in Tori's room, he just rolled his eyes and made room for her on the couch (come on, how did Tori not realize at this point that Jade liked to screw with people?). Immediately, Jade curled into his side, practically sitting on his lap.

Apparently, however, cuddling wasn't good enough for Jade. As Tori sat down next to her, Jade jutted out her hip suddenly, knocking Tori to the floor. Tori gasped; Jade didn't even flinch; Andre looked scandalized; and Beck, who was completely used to this behavior, merely ignored the entire scene. As Tori settled onto the other couch, looking disgruntled, Beck hit "play" and the show began.

"Welcome to…the Wood!" the announcer began. Shots panned throughout the high school, showing Andre playing piano, Beck in the parking lot, Jade talking to a group of students (she looked really hot, Beck noticed, and actually looked semi-happy. Good job, camera man), and Tori by the lockers.

"But the best drama happens off-stage," concluded the narrator. The screen flashed to a shot of the couple (Beck still found it weird watching himself on television, but he supposed he should get used to it). "Beck and Jade have been dating for two years," began the announcer, and Beck recognized what must have been a shot from their sort-of make out at the lockers the other day. He had to admit that the footage was cute: they were both smiling adoringly as they leaned into the kiss (plus, he thought, his hair looked pretty good). As much as they fought sometimes, moments like that made him remember why he dating Jade was worth it.

"Ugh, yeah. Shoot me from that angle," groaned Jade, crossing her arms in irritation.

"You look great," he assured her, stroking her arm lightly.

"I know." He rolled his eyes. Typical Jade.

The camera panned to a shot of the two of them walking down the stairs, obviously mid-argument: Jade was nagging him about something, and Beck clearly annoyed. The voiceover continued. "But is Beck getting tired of the same old thing?"

Next to him, he felt Jade tense. Crap. When she looked at him, brow furrowed, he merely shrugged. He'd had no idea that this was coming.

The scene then switched to a shot of him at lunch, talking on the phone. Beck thought he recognized his conversation with the pizza guy from earlier.

"Hey, it's Beck."

Cut to a shot of Tori in the kitchen. "Hi baby," she said, her voice high-pitched and sickeningly sweet.

This could not be good. Beck glanced over at Tori, but she looked just as shocked as he was. Jade, however, looked murderous.

"My parents aren't home," Tori-on-screen continued.

They watched as the apparent "conversation" unfolded. Beck felt Jade's irritation surge as she tensed up, then leaned forwards. When Tori-on-screen said something about "tickling Beck's tummy," both Tori and Jade actually shot forward in shock, Tori's mouth falling open.

"You should come over."

Beck-on-screen glanced around anxiously. "Yeah, my girlfriend's not gonna like that."

"I won't tell her."

Shit. This _really, really_ was not good.

"Love you. Miss you."

"You make me happy!" Yep, definitely his pizza conversation from earlier.

The clip ended and there was a moment of stunned silence from all of them. Jade glanced over at Tori, glaring daggers.

"Man, this show is good!" piped up Andre. Beck quickly put down his lemonade and threw an arm over Jade's shoulder, hoping to calm her down.

It didn't work. The second Tori opened her mouth to stammer out an explanation, Jade shoved off Beck's arm and launched herself at Tori.

"_You little boyfriend-stealing skank!_"

Tori turned away at the last minute, resulting in Jade grabbing her from behind instead. Jade pulled her off the couch, and Tori shrieked.

"Jade! Stop! Please!" Her words slowly faded into incoherent shouts. Beck couldn't make out what Jade was bellowing, but she was clearly angry. Beck tried to grab her.

"You_—_get—_off_—me!" She threw his arm off and Beck stumbled backwards a few steps. When did she get so strong?

After about a minute of struggling, Tori flailing everywhere, and intense yelling from everyone involved, Andre managed to yank Jade off of Tori's back, throwing her towards Beck. Beck caught her and held her. After a moment, Jade eased up, spitting hair out of her face as she stared murderously at both of them.

Beck couldn't help being slightly disappointed that after everything, Jade would still immediately jump to the conclusion that he would cheat on her. "Okay, that phone conversation never happened!" he shouted angrily.

"_I saw it_!" Jade screeched right back. He heard the hurt mixed within the anger, and forced himself to take a calming breath. This was not Jade's fault. It was the fault of the stupid people who had made The Wood.

"Okay, I need some pink lemonade." Andre went over to the kitchen.

"That phone call between Beck and me wasn't real!" Tori protested.

"You offered to tickle his tummy!" Jade retorted.

"I was talking to a puppy!" Tori's voice was desperate.

Beck chimed in. "I was ordering a pizza!"

Jade turned to Beck. "How does she know you like having your tummy tickled?"

Whoops. Tori had no way of knowing it, but Jade had discovered his particular, ahh, _enjoyment_ of being tickled one of the first times she'd slept over. She _loved_ to tease him that way. He could only imagine what was going through Jade's head at the moment (or, for that matter, what was going through _Tori_'s head).

Tori, however, threw her arms up. "_Everyone_ likes having their tummy tickled!"

"It's true! Sometimes I do it to myself," Andre called out. Beck looked at him gratefully (although Andre tickling himself was a strange image, he had to admit…).

"The producers took two separate phone conversations and cut them together," Beck explained angrily.

"I want to hear that from them." He hadn't expected Jade to be that easily placated, but was still disappointed at the hysterical and demanding note in her voice. Next to him, Tori groaned in disbelief.

"Fine! We'll go right to them first thing in the morning."

"Wait," Andre said. "I heard them talking about staying afterschool to interview some kids. You know, about that play Sinjin's doing set design for? Rex said something about it."

They looked at each other, then bolted to the car.

…

Andre was driving, with Tori riding shotgun; Jade had made sure to put as much distance as possible between her and Beck in the backseat. After a few attempts to break the obvious tension, Andre gave up. They rode in silence, Jade seething in the backseat.

_How_ could he cheat on her with Tori? A part of Jade hoped desperately that it wasn't true, but the other part of her had seen the conversation with her own eyes, and wanted to murder both Beck and Tori. _Especially_ after the tickling comment. Tickling was a _their _thing. She had made Beck _promise_ that no one else would ever know about the tickle wars that they sometimes had (especially since tickling usually led to…other things. Jade shuddered at the thought of Beck doing "other things" with _Tori_).

As they pulled into the school parking lot, Tori made a half-hearted attempt to talk to Jade. "Please, Jade, I promise. Nothing is going on between me and Beck."

"Shut it." Jade stalked off, and the rest of them followed her silently down the hallway.

Just as Andre had predicted, they found the film crew in the Black Box theatre. Sinjin was currently being interviewed. Jade only caught a snippet of what he said—"and I know she and her really hot friend Tori are both on the show, and they're both really pretty, so I was wondering if you ever needed someone to be, you know, like, a romantic rival or something—" before Jade stormed up to the head producer.

"_When_ did you film that phone conversation between"—she stopped and gestured wildly between Beck and Tori—"_those two_?"

"_Please_ tell her that you took two separate phone conversations and cut them together!" begged Tori.

"Yeah, we took two separate phone conversations and cut them together!" Jade was taken aback by the man's confession. He almost seemed…_proud_?

"Pretty cool, right?" The man on his left grinned cheerfully.

Jade was still angry, but she felt waves of relief washing over her. Beck was giving her the "I-told-you-so" look, but Jade ignored it. Like she was going to apologize for reacting to something so clearly hurtful.

"She almost killed me!" Tori dragged Jade forward plaintively, and Jade rolled her eyes.

"I wouldn't have actually _killed_ you." Although, she thought, if she had actually _seen_ Tori and Beck doing _her _tickling-thing, all bets would have been off.

The director went off on some tangent about how reality shows weren't "real," but Jade didn't really pay attention. She was too annoyed that this guy had decided to screw with her relationship with Beck. Fortunately, Beck looked just as affronted as Jade.

"Look." The director turned to them. "You guys go to this school because you want to entertain people, right?" They all shrugged. "Well, this is no different than being in a play. It's acting! Just without a script."

"So…like improv," said Beck slowly.

"Exactly!" The director clapped his hands together.

"Well, you could've told us that!" Jade said indignantly. No way this guy was getting off scot-free just because he pulled the whole "you're all actors" speech.

"Yeah! Before the attempted murder!" Tori interjected. Jade rolled her eyes.

"Don't be so dramatic!" she sighed.

"No! Be more dramatic!" They all started at the producer's enthusiasm.

One of the other crew members jumped in. "And the next time you two have a girl-fight, could you call it first so we can get it on video?"

"Or…" said the other guy slowly, "they could re-enact it…"

Jade looked at Tori. Miraculously, Tori seemed okay with this. Well, whatever. An extra chance to beat up Vega? Hell yes.

She grabbed Tori's hair and for the next minute the two of them wrestled with each other, hair flying. Tori's loud shrieking was annoying at first, but then Jade just decided to scream louder so that she could tune it out. She caught a glance of Beck's amused face as she and Tori collapsed loudly onto the floor.

"Okay, that's enough footage," someone called. Tori immediately stopped fighting. Jade shoved her once more for good measure, and then stood up, brushing herself off.

"Alright, let's get out of here," said Andre. Tori and Beck nodded their agreement, and started moving towards the exit.

"I'll be right there," called Jade. There was one more thing she had to do. She walked calmly up to the executive producer.

"Whose idea was it to make it seem like Beck was cheating on me?" she asked sweetly.

"Oh, that! Wasn't that a cool idea! It was someone around here…Oh, there she is! Katie, come over here!" Jade's jaw nearly dropped. Apparently, this little bitch hadn't learned her lesson the first time around.

"Katie here saw the footage and thought it would make a great conversation for the show!" He patted Katie on the back proudly, and then frowned. "But I thought she told you about the plan?"

"Oh, _really_?" Jade hissed venomously. Katie glanced around the room anxiously, and then scurried over to help the cameraman, out of earshot. "Well, did she tell you what _else_ she told me?"

"No," said the man, looking confused.

Jade narrowed her eyes conspiratorially. "She told me that the reason you're so interested in _my_ relationship is because your wife, Dorothy, left you. I know it's a _big_ secret and all, but I wanted to make sure you were okay."

"_What_?" He snapped.

"Yeah," sighed Jade. "She said that you're really sensitive about it. But," she added, "I think that Katie has a little _thing_ for you, if you know what I mean." Jade worked really hard to stop herself from smirking.

"Wait, wait. She _what_?" he barked, taken aback.

Jade shrugged innocently. "I think the poor girl's in love with you. She's probably secretly hoping that now that you're all alone, you'll take a second glance at her." She twirled her hair around her finger. "It must be terrible to be so lonely. I'm sure that's why she jumped to hit on _high school_ boys."

"My wife Dorothy is _dead_," he hissed. Whoops. Guess she'd hadn't quite heard that phone conversation clearly.

Jade shrugged. "That's just what she said. She's probably just so sad she's projecting her delusions onto you. See you tomorrow!" She turned and made her way out the door, just in time to hear him roar "KATIE!" as she left the room.

A few minutes later, Katie stormed out of the room, head down, clearly crying. She stopped when she saw Jade standing by her locker. Jade nodded at the girl.

"_You!_"

"Move along now," said Jade. She walked up to the girl—who was wearing another stupid shirt, this time pink with ribbons—and patted her sympathetically on the shoulder before walking away. Katie just spluttered.

"Why—how did you—you little _bitch_!"

Jade turned around. "Guess you shouldn't have hit on my boyfriend, then, huh?" With that, she pushed through the doors and climbed into Andre's waiting car, ignoring the shouts coming from behind her and the confused looks of her friends.

**I couldn't resist including that one quote about Trina "reeking of desperation." Also, I decided not to explore what Jade was actually doing in Tori's room…but maybe I'll do that later. Haha.**

**Anyway, I'm working to get a few other chapters up within the next week or two, so stay tuned! R&R please.**


	9. Give It Up

**So here's the chapter on Freak the Freak Out that I *finally* finished. Sorry it took me so so so long! It's obviously a long episode with a lot of material. In addition, I've just gone back to school, so unfortunately updates will be somewhat less frequent now. However, I'm still going to work my hardest to keep them going! Writing is pretty relaxing for me, so hopefully I'll have some time between school and athletics and homework.**

**At least four people have requested this episode (either in reviews or PM), so I hope you like my spin on it!**

…

Jade was having a bad day.

She'd woken up late, skipped breakfast, and (since Beck's convertible had decided to get a flat tire on their way to school) she hadn't had any coffee. She'd forgotten her homework for two of her classes. And to top it all off, a freshman had spilled coffee on her shoes before third period, simultaneously staining her boots and reminding her of how much she desperately needed caffeine.

Fortunately, everyone at lunch had sensed her bad mood, and mostly left her alone. Now, sitting in Sikowitz's class, Jade crossed her arms and frowned. At least the day was almost over. If only she could make the period go faster.

"Don't move. And don't make a sound," Andre commanded on-stage as he reached for the tweezers. He leaned closer to Cat's face when suddenly—

_Ring!_ The familiar sound of a cell phone shattered the silence.

"The ringing is back!" Sikowitz batted at the air, terrified.

Jade rolled her eyes and looked at Beck, who shrugged. Somehow, she wasn't shocked by her teacher's reaction.

"Sikowitz!" she called out, hoping to placate him. "Sikowitz, hey!" Beck's voice joined hers as Sikowitz continued to hop around in fear.

"Sikowitz!" They both shouted in unison (Jade secretly loved when they did that). Their teacher stopped on the spot.

"That was a _phone_," said Robbie calmingly.

"Oh." Sikowitz looked slightly calmer as he surveyed the class menacingly. "Who's?"

Jade could only think of one person who could be stupid enough to leave a cell phone on in the middle of an acting class. She looked to her right. Sure enough, Tori was squirming uncomfortably. "Mine," she mumbled. As Sikowitz lectured Tori about the incident, Jade grinned. Every now and then, it was nice to see Little Miss Perfect put in her place.

Since the scene had officially been killed ("Thanks a lot, Tori!" said Cat. Jade smirked), they discussed their upcoming weekend plans instead.

"Hey, guess what Jade and I are doing tonight?" Cat's perky voice drew Jade's attention again. "There's this new place in Los Felix called Karaoke Dokie and they have singing competitions on the weekend, so Jade and I are gonna sing a song."

_Oh god_, she thought. Although the plan had originally sounded fun, hearing the words come out of Cat's mouth made Jade feel suddenly stupid. She couldn't have everyone think she'd gone soft. "I'm picking the song," Jade called irritably.

"Jade's picking the song!" Cat echoed, looking entirely unperturbed.

"Aww, I wish I could go." Vega's voice. Ha. _Sucks for her_, Jade thought.

"Why can't you?" Jade felt her already elevated temper flare at Beck's question. Why did _Beck _need to know where _Tori_ would be? He was already going to be with _Jade_, his girlfriend. Wasn't she enough for him?

"Who cares why she can't?"

Beck looked exasperated. "I was just wondering—" he began, but Jade wasn't having any of it. She didn't see why her question was out of line. Unless, of course, Beck legitimately wanted to have Tori around, and was trying to distract Jade from figuring that out.

"What, you need Tori around to have a good time? Is that your point?"

"Dude!"

"_What_?" Her intense need for coffee made her voice more defensive than usual.

"Jade." Sikowitz cut her off. He spoke slowly, as if speaking to a child. "You're lucky to have Beck. Don't be such a _gank_."

Jade was momentarily stunned. She'd never been spoken to like that by a teacher. Especially not by Sikowitz, who was normally a lot more tolerant than most of her other teachers. Apparently, this day was destined to get worse instead of better. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Beck snicker. Jerk. How on earth could he find it funny that her _teacher_—who also happened to be in charge of casting for school plays and musicals—had just insulted Jade right in front of the entire class?

Tori, meantime, was busy whining about her parents, who had apparently left her in charge of Trina's recovery from mouth surgery. Good for Tori. "Sucks to be you," Jade muttered.

"Gank," Tori snipped. Jade bristled again. The sight of Beck's grin only made her angrier. He seriously found it funny that Vega and Sikowitz were humiliating Jade in front of the entire class?

Traitor.

The bell rang again, interrupting any further conversation. Ignoring Sikowitz's subsequent panic attack (and Beck's still-amused face), Jade stood up haughtily, gathering her stuff. She saw Beck waiting for her by the door, but she breezed right past him, still annoyed.

Footsteps behind her. Apparently Beck had pretended not to notice the fact that she'd completely blown him off. He followed Jade to her locker.

"So, you excited for tonight?"

She didn't respond, but continued to rifle through her textbooks.

"Seriously," he said. "Let it go."

"Excuse me?" she said icily. "Why should I? After you fawned all over Tori and then Sikowitz was beyond rude to me?"

Beck sighed, running his hand through his hair. "Come on, Jade. He was _joking_." He took her arm. "The day's almost over, and you can come over to my house for a bit before we head over to Karaoke Dokie."

Jade considered the offer. As irritated as she was, it did sound tempting. She slammed her locker shut.

"Fine. But you're getting me coffee first."

…

Jade secretly loved Friday afternoons. They allowed her time with Beck with no rehearsals or stupid homework to get in the way. Plus, she noticed, it wasn't sunny or humid outside (for once), so they took the top off of the convertible. Finally, the day was looking up.

After arguing, albeit good-naturedly, over what was on the radio, Beck pulled up to his RV. "My parents won't be home for a while," he said casually, "so we've got some time." Although Jade had some, ahem, _ideas_ of what they could do in their spare time, she was surprised when Beck took her arm and led her into the main house.

They almost never entered his real house, partially because Beck's parents didn't like Jade and partially because there wasn't anything to do in there, anyway. Jade had no choice but to follow as Beck opened the front door and made his way to the living room.

"What are we even doing in here? Why can't we go out into the RV?" she complained. Beck either didn't hear her or ignored her as he made his way over to the piano.

He shrugged. "I thought we could, you know, warm up for karaoke later. I haven't heard you sing in a while."

"What, you think I'm not talented enough to remember how to sing?" she demanded.

He laughed. "Of course you are. I've just missed hearing it, that's all. Since we mostly do acting now." He looked at her. "I thought it would be nice."

"Fine," she said, softening. He gestured for her to go first. "But I'm not playing any of your weird music either."

"My music isn't _weird_," said Beck in mock-offense.

"Yes, it is," she said matter-of-factly as she played the first notes of a Beatles song.

Jade had forgotten how much she missed singing. It wasn't her true passion – that would always be acting, and maybe writing. But that didn't mean she couldn't sing as well. As she'd snidely told Andre one day, "I don't need to study singing because I'm already good at it." Before she knew it, an hour had gone by.

"That was good," Beck said. He kept his voice casual, but Jade could hear the suppressed pride in it. She smirked slightly, leaning in for a kiss before they made their way to the car to pick up Cat and Andre.

"You know," he mumbled, "we probably don't have to pick them up for another five minutes. We could hang here for a minute…"

Jade smirked.

…

They had been at Karaoke Dokie for about half an hour before Jade got up to get a soda. Although Andre asked for one, Jade snapped the word "no" before he had even finished asking. Like she was spending her own money on his soda. She saw Beck wince, but then smile, as if mildly amused. Andre muttered something about her being a gank.

"You have no idea," Beck said. Jade scowled. He hadn't thought she was such a gank when they were making out in his living room earlier.

As she reached the soda bar, she passed two girls. One was tall and blonde, with a stupid simper on her face; the other had brown hair and a snide expression to match. Jade ignored them as she passed. On her way back, however, something made her stop.

The brunette from earlier was sitting in Jade's seat, talking to Beck. Mouth open in shock, Jade watched as the girl raised her hand and _stroked_ Beck's hair. To Beck's credit, he reached up and pulled her hand away, looking uneasy, but the stupid girl simply put her hands on top of his instead. Bitch. Jade strode towards the table angrily—why wasn't Beck telling the stupid girl to get lost?—and she knew Beck saw her, because he very pointedly moved the girl's hand off of his own, placing it on the table instead. Although he still seemed to be stroking her fingers a little bit. Jade would have to _discuss_ that with him later.

"Um, hi. Miss?" Cat poked the girl. Good old Cat. She annoyed Jade sometimes, but in times like this, she really came in handy.

"What?" The brunette looked at Cat, just as Jade, arms folded, came up behind her.

"He has a girlfriend." Cat sounded nervous.

The brown-haired little girl (_gank_, corrected Jade in her head) raised an eyebrow. "I don't see her," she said arrogantly.

Jade felt her eyes widen. "Turn around," she barked.

The girl turned, surveying Jade disdainfully. "I don't see much."

Jade could practically feel the temperature of the air surrounding them plummet ten degrees. The little _gank_ stood up and Jade placed her glass aside, freeing her hands in case she had to punch the girl. She opened her mouth for a searing retort, but was cut off by Beck and Andre hastily cutting in, with Cat attempting to act as a barrier between Jade and the stupid other girl. Still, Jade ignored Beck and Andre's awkward attempts to diffuse the tension. She was not backing down without a fight.

_Especially_ when boyfriend-stealer's little blonde friend pointed to Andre's jacket. "Hey. Check out dude's jacket," she simpered.

The brunette turned around. "_Oh_," she said, scorn dripping from her voice. "_Hollywood Arts_. The school for _wannabes_."

Any other girl would have been stunned speechless. But Jade West was a woman of action, and she knew that she could beat this girl easily. So she tossed her head casually. "You know, _you_ might 'wannabe' shutting your face, there."

"Really?"

Jade didn't flinch. "_Really."_

Andre shouted something about buffalo nuggets, but Jade ignored him. Everything she had was focused on the gank in front of her, who opened her mouth. "So, you girls gonna sing tonight?"

"Well, we didn't come for the buffalo nuggets," Jade retorted.

"But we're gonna get some, right?" piped up Beck from behind her. Jade turned irately. _Now_ he chose to interrupt her?

"I don't care!"

Beck nodded to Andre, clearly satisfied, and Jade turned back to the topic at hand. "And yeah. We're singing tonight."

"Awesome. So are we."

"I like Japan," Cat interrupted. Everyone turned to look at her. "Except my brother got stabbed there. It was an accident. He's better now." She looked pensive. "Are buffalo nuggets spicy?"

Jade almost smiled. It was worth keeping Cat around purely to see the expression on everyone else's faces whenever the redhead spoke. When the brunette laughed rudely, however, Jade felt an odd desire to defend her friend.

"We'll see who's laughing when we beat your sorry asses later."

"Whatever." The brumnette girl tossed her head. Linking her arm through the blonde's, she turned and swaggered off with her friend. Jade watched as the two of them approached the emcee by the stage.

Coolly, she turned around, sat down, and began sipping her soda as if nothing had happened.

"Jade," Andre began, "do you really think this is the best idea?"

"Oh, so you don't think Cat and I are good enough?" she snapped. Andre mumbled something about placing their order, and left. Beck looked as if he were about to say something, but Jade cut him off before he could say a word. "And you! You just let that girl put her hands _all over you_. I bet you liked it, too."

"No, I didn't! I took her hands off of me!"

"Yeah, after you let her stroke your hair for like, a minute."

"I didn't—"

"Whatever." Jade tossed her hair angrily, and turned to face the stage. The emcee had just announced that there would be a singing competition going on.

"Next up are a couple of Karaoke Dokie regulars, Hayley Ferguson and Tara Gang!"

Huh. It was fitting that blondie's last name sounded awfully close to _gank_. Jade watched as the two girls walked arrogantly up the stairs.

"Enjoy us," said the brunette girl (Hayley?) snidely.

"Enjoy my monkey fur!" Jade sneered in response, brandishing her purse. Behind her, Cat giggled, but Beck winced. Too damn bad. This entire thing was his own freaking fault—if only he had stopped that stupid girl from flirting with him in the first place, none of this would be necessary. The brunette looked startled but continued onto the stage, requesting "number one"—a bouncy pop song by Ginger Fox (probably, Jade thought, something that _Tori_ would listen to. She didn't bother trying to hide her eyeroll).

The music rose, and the brunette—Hayley or Tara or whatever her name was—started to sing. But what came out of her mouth was…not music. Not good music, anyway. She hit the notes right, but it just sounded…flat. In other words, bad.

Jade couldn't stop the surprised (but pleased) grin that immediately spread across her face. This was going to be fun to watch. Although the two girls were obviously trying to look sexy, their dancing was even worse than their singing. Slowly, the annoying brunette made her way over until she was dancing provocatively in front of their table. Apparently she was unaware of how stupid she looked (or how bad she sounded), so Jade, with a triumphant, sarcastic smile on her face, merely gestured for the girl to continue. Sneaking a glance at her boyfriend, Jade was pleased to see that he looked even less impressed than her, and Andre merely looked embarrassed. After some more suggestive dancing and poor singing, the girls finally stopped.

The applause was polite, but much louder than deserved. Jade couldn't resist. "Yeah, we're clapping cuz it's over!" she called as they left the stage. Beck and Cat shushed her, but she saw a smile flash across Beck's face anyway. Even _he_ couldn't deny how awful those girls were.

After a minute, Cat looked over at Jade. "So, what do you want to sing?"

"Huh?"

Cat looked confused. "I thought you were picking the song?"

"Right." Jade thought for a moment. Then she smiled wickedly. "I have the perfect idea."

…

Beck's night hadn't exactly gone along as planned.

He truthfully hadn't intended to flirt with the brunette girl (Hayley?), but he hadn't exactly pulled her hand off of his right away, either. He'd been too shocked that she would hit on him with his hot-tempered girlfriend only five feet away—but then, she didn't know Jade West. So although he'd tried to diffuse the tension a bit, he hadn't fought against the idea of a singing competition. And when the two girls had turned out to be awful, he'd been just as amused as Jade obviously was. He knew Jade and Cat would wipe the floor with these girls, and he was strangely looking forward to it. Jade was the definition of a passionate person, and he knew her anger and emotion would only made her work harder. He was looking forward to hear her sing with Cat, even if they had refused to tell him what song they had picked.

Cat looked at Jade as Tara and Hayley climbed down the stairs. "You ready?"

Beck could have laughed at the disdainful expression on Jade's face. "Oh, please," she said calmly. "You even have to ask?"

The emcee called them up, and with both giggles (Cat) and feigned indifference (Jade), the duo made their way up to the stage. Beck suppressed a grin as Jade smiled tauntingly at Hayley and Tara. This was going to be fun to watch. "We wanna sing 'Give It Up,'" said Cat. Not exactly surprising, considering the nature of the competition, but Beck was still impressed—he knew it was a hard song to sing. Still, if anyone could kill it, it would be Jade and Cat.

"Alright! A little R&B action tonight!" called the DJ enthusiastically.

"Yeah, just play it," Jade ordered.

The opening notes of the sing played, and suddenly, Jade spun around was singing. Her voice was harmonious, powerful, and controlled, and Beck couldn't help but admire the confidence that radiated off of her as she eased her way down the stage. He cheered loudly. Sure, Cat sang well and looked pretty in her shimmery silver top, but he couldn't keep his eyes off of Jade. Her voice, perfectly balanced between melodic and sultry, blended perfectly with Cat's as she shimmied slightly (Beck laughed—seriously, the song itself wasn't suggestive enough for her?). Truthfully, between her voice, the wicked glint in her eye, and the way she absolutely _owned_ that stage, he couldn't get over how undeniably _hot_ his girlfriend was. Suddenly, he couldn't believe he'd even hesitated to push the other girl away.

As Cat and Jade began the last chorus of the song, felt himself stand up along with the rest of the crowd. Even when Jade leaned over and tossed Hayley and Tara's food onto the floor, he couldn't bring himself to do anything other than laugh at the face that those other girls had thought they'd win. He was too entranced by the sheer confidence in her step as she stood up, spun around, and hit the power note perfectly to finish the song.

Cat looked excited, skipping off the stage, but Jade simply looked smug. With a touch of arrogance, she walked calmly over to Beck and cupped her hands on his cheekbones, bringing him in for a quick kiss. He chortled, but obliged. Typical Jade. Even after owning the other girls in karaoke, she still made sure to mark Beck as _hers_.

"Yeah baby, what about that?" called the emcee. Beck cheered as loudly as he could, grinning as Jade smirked at Hayley (or was it Tara?).

"Now, to announce tonight's karaoke-dokie winner, here's the owner of the joint, the man who signs my checks, Joey Ferguson!"

Beck clapped politely as a stout man made his way onto the stage, mopping sweat from his brow. It almost wasn't worth even being surprised—Jade and Cat had obviously dominated the competition—but he knew Jade would still want the satisfaction of hearing her own name announced as the winner.

"Thanks everyone!" shouted the man. "Lot of great singers tonight! But I think two girls really stood out." Even Jade looked happy, anticipating her win. Beck reached forward and rubbed her arm to congratulate her as the man opened his mouth to reveal the winners.

"So…tonight's winners are…HAYLEY AND TARA!"

Beck nearly dropped his soda, and by the looks of it so did about half the people in the club. He felt a pang as both Jade's and Cat's mouths dropped open; for once, he was just as outraged as his girlfriend. There was absolutely no way that those two girls had sang better than his girlfriend and friend. Something else had to be going on.

"Hey! Are you wazzing me? Those scrounges can't sing!" yelled Rex.

Beck felt a rare sense of appreciation for the puppet. He stood up to add his own two cents. "Come on, man!"

Andre joined him. "These girls got ten times more applause than them!"

"Just sit down!" said Hayley (or Tara) snidely.

Cat and Andre stood up as well. "I'll sit you down!" shouted Andre. As Jade stood up, incensed, Beck put a calming hand on both her and Andre's shoulders.

"Hey, hey," said the man. "I own the club, so I decide who wins."

"Thank you, dad," said the brunette smoothly.

Beck felt his stomach drop, and apparently, so did his girlfriend. "Dad?" she asked incredulously. With a derisive laugh, she threw her hands up with the air of someone solving a very stupid puzzle. "_Dad_!"

Cat stood up. "Wait! Why would she call him…" Realization dawned in her eyes. "I bet he's her father!" Jade rolled her eyes and patted Cat on the shoulder.

"Fix!" called Rex, and soon the rest of the audience joined him. One of the girls on stage tried to defend her title on-stage ("we won because we rocked!"), but Beck was so disgusted that he didn't even bother responding.

"Don't believe everything your daddy says!" That one came, surprisingly, from Cat. The next comment, however, was pure Jade West.

"Yeah. Like when he tells you you're pretty!"

Beck normally found Jade's insults mildly amusing at best, but tonight, he found he appreciated it more than usual. At least Jade West would never willingly lose a competition without the chance to get a few quality insults first.

"Okay, that's it!" The snippy brunette whined. "You guys are banned from singing here ever again!"

"Yeah, like we care!" Jade spun around.

"Come on, let's get out of here," said Beck, glaring at the stage. Just then, however, a pretty waitress made her way over to their table, depositing their food. They all looked at each other. Beck wanted to leave in solidarity with his girlfriend...but the food smelled so _good_… and apparently, Andre agreed with him. "I say we get out of here…right after we eat this food!"

"Right after!" Jade agreed loudly. They all sat down, shoveling food into their mouths.

After a frantic meal, they packed up and headed towards the car. Jade, however, stayed in her seat.

"Jade? Are you coming?" called Cat.

"Nah," she said. "Gimme a minute and I'll be right there." She fingered the last buffalo nugget and stoof up, walking purposefully towards Hayley and Tara. _This cannot be good_, thought Beck. Sure enough, Jade barged right into their conversation, effectively shutting the two girls up when she snarled, "I forgot something."

"Oh, I'm sorry, did you come to admit that you suck after all?" taunted Tara.

Jade smiled sweetly. "Nope." She picked up the buffalo nugget and dipped it in some ketchup. "I forgot to do this."

Before the brunette could react, Jade had shoved the nugget down her shirt. Hayley squealed, her friend immediately grabbing a napkin to try and clean up the mess.

"Have a nice night!" said Jade mock-pleasantly. "And _never_ hit on my boyfriend again."

From his position by the door, Beck groaned slightly, but it was with an entertained expression that he took Jade's arm and escorted her to the car.

…

On the ride home, Jade sat silent in the front seat, fuming silently. Beck took her hand with his free one (he preferred to drive with one hand, anyway), but she remained stubbornly sulky until he had dropped off Cat and Andre. At last, it was just the two of them, sitting in Beck's car, until Beck couldn't take the silence.

"Come on, Jade. At least it's over with." She glared at him but didn't interrupt, so he pressed on. "You know you killed those girls in the competition. You're better than them." She was still silent. Then, suddenly—

"Don't you understand?" she burst out.

Beck was startled. "Understand what? That it was rigged and you and Cat were clearly the best?"

Jade shook her head, frustrated. "This is just like when Vega came to our school. Even though I'm more talented and a better singer, she gets _all_ of the roles and _all_ of the attention, and she doesn't have to work for any of it! I can't stand when I work so hard and I _still can't win_!" Her voice got progressively louder as she went on, and she stomped her foot in frustration.

Beck was speechless for a moment.

"Come on, this has nothing to do with Tori." She glared at him, and he rolled his eyes. "You know how talented you are. Seriously, you're probably one of the best singers and actresses in Hollywood Arts, hands down."

"I don't want to be one of the best. I want to be _the _best." Still, she softened slightly.

"Just relax, you know you're good," he said soothingly, opening the door to the convertible. After a moment, she climbed out. "There's nothing you can do when the situation is out of your control like that." He wrapped an arm around her waist, massaging her shoulder with his other hand as they stared up at the stars.

"I know," she said, sighing.

"Besides," he whispered, "you singing up there was one of the hottest things I've ever seen."

"Hotter than that stupid brunette chick who couldn't even sing?"

"Oh, way hotter," he assured her. He _thought_ he saw a hint of a smile.

"Well, duh." She leaned back into him, and he smiled. Maybe this night wasn't so bad after all.

**That was…long. Like really long. I might do another scene from this episode, but it didn't fit with the flow of this chapter, so I might just leave it as is. Either way, thanks for reading! Let me know what you thought.**


	10. Outtake: So I Think I Win

**WOW – over 100 reviews! Thank you to everyone who has read and/or reviewed this story; it really means SO MUCH to me! It also inspires me to keep writing, even though I've been pretty busy with sports and schoolwork and whatnot. Thanks to everyone for their continued support.**

**As of now, there are several episodes/clips that I am working on, so if you leave a request, it may take a little bit for me to get to it. But I promise, I'm doing my best! I'm not entirely sure what Safari Slam Bade weekend even stands for, but I figured I might as well post this for it. **

**Here is an outtake scene from the last chapter: Jade, Cat, Tori, Hayley and Tara in the car ride back to Tori's house, after Tori won the competition. Originally, this was going to be part of the last chapter, but I felt bad about not updating sooner, so I posted "Give It Up" without this scene because I wasn't sure how to fit it in. So here it is. It's short, but was still really fun to write. Look for an actual chapter in the near future!**

As a general rule, Jade West liked silence. Mainly because people annoyed her. She tolerated them, but more often than not, she found herself wishing that most of the people around her would just _shut up_ instead of regaling her with boring tales of their pointless, stupid lives. Sure, she liked when Beck talked, and when Cat or Andre sang, but otherwise, Jade would have been happy as a clam if only people who ever talked were the ones who actually had something _important_ to say.

Besides, silence made it easier to screw with people. Which was always a plus.

These were the musings that swirled around Jade's head as she reversed Beck's convertible and pulled out of the Karaoke Dokie parking lot. Cat sat in the passenger seat, with Tori smiling in the back, and Hayley and Tara sulking beside her. Jade was enjoying the atmosphere in the car: Cat and Tori seemed content, while the two other girls sat fuming. Little did the two losers know that their night was about to get worse.

For three blissful minutes, nobody spoke, and Jade West couldn't shake the vindictive pleasure she felt. She'd taken those bitches down. Even if she'd needed Tori-freaking-_Vega_'s singing to do so, she'd embarrassed them enough that she didn't care. Served them right for hitting on her boyfriend.

(And, if she was being honest, Tori's singing hadn't been too terrible either. It'd almost been fun, dancing on stage and watching Hayley and Tara's smiles slide away.)

"So who are we babysitting for again?" There went the blonde again. Damn her. Just as Jade was starting to enjoy the ride…

Tori answered. "Oh, you'll see."

Jade was surprised (but secretly pleased) to hear the malicious glee in Tori's voice. _Not bad, Vega_, she thought. She kept driving without comment.

"You losers realize that we still beat you, right?" That was the brunette (Hayley, Jade had figured out). Jade merely smirked.

"Whatever."

"Yeah, but I guess you won't be making out with Jade's boyfriend now, huh? I'm kind of glad. She wouldn't have liked that!" Cat giggled. Jade shot her a look (_seriously, Cat?_), but couldn't resist a slight smirk. Considering that the entire scenario had been started by Hayley's stupid flirting with Beck, Jade felt that gloating was completely justified. If Cat wanted to lord over Hayley the fact that Beck belonged to Jade, good for Cat.

"Oh, please. What does _she_ have that I don't?"

Jade heard Tori's sharp intake of breath, saw Cat's eyes widen. Her pulse quickened. Who did that gank think she was?

"Well," Jade began curtly, "I have talent. Which you clearly don't."

"Yeah, well we still beat you on the first night!" piped up Tara. Jade ignored her..

"And," she continued, as if she hadn't heard the blonde, "I have Beck. Which you don't. So I think I win. And more importantly, _you_ lose."

"Yeah," said Hayley, "but why would he be with you when he could have someone like _me_? I mean, come on. Even _this_ chick, Louise what's-her-name, is prettier than you."

"Excuse me?" Jade couldn't keep her voice even any longer. She fought the urge to stop the car and break the girl's smug little face.

"He probably just tolerates you. God, I can't imagine anyone putting up with such a vindictive little _brat _as a girlfriend."

That did it. Jade slammed on the brakes (they were at a stop sign anyway) and twisted around to look the girl in the eye. Tori mumbled something ("Uhh, Jade, shouldn't you keep your eyes on the road?"), but Jade didn't really care.

"Listen, gank," she snapped. "You're not as pretty as me. You're sure as hell not as talented as me. And at least _I'm_ not desperate enough to go around hitting on other people's boyfriends." She narrowed her eyes. "You couldn't get into Hollywood Arts if you tried. _Her_ sister"—she jabbed her thumb at Tori—"is the least talented person in our school, and even _she's_ better than you!"

A moment of silence. Hayley looked affronted.

"Um, Jade, maybe we should start driving—"

"Shut it, Tori!" Jade growled. Tara looked confused.

"I thought your name was Louise?" asked Tara, looking confused.

"No one cares!" said Jade irately. She turned to Hayley. "All that matters is that _you_ hit on my boyfriend, and _you_ lost. So _you_ better be shutting your face there before I _make_ you."

She turned around and started driving again. "And," she finished acidly, "Beck _likes_ being dominated."

More shocked silence. Jade smirked again. _Eat that, Daddy's girl_.

"It really isn't nice to flirt with other people's boyfriends," said Cat earnestly. "Seriously, once Tori made out with my boyfriend, and I was really sad for a while. But now we're friends again."

Jade stifled a sardonic snort.

"This is a…nice car," said Tara after another minute of quiet, apparently trying to break awkwardness.

"It's Beck's," said Jade dismissively. The two girls were quiet again.

As they pulled into Vega's driveway, Hayley spoke up again. "So we're just, like, babysitting, right?"

"Uh huh!" said Vega.

"Well," said Cat, "actually, there's this girl, Trina, and she had this surgery…"

"Cat!" said Tori. "They're just babysitting a girl. _Right_?"

"Oh. Right."

Jade's phone beeped as she parked the car. It was a text from Beck.

_Are you coming back, or are you just gonna keep my car and leave us with TRINA all night?_ She could tell he was annoyed when he didn't even start the text with some variation of "hey babe."

_Don't be such a pansy_, she responded. She couldn't wait to see his face when they opened the door in a few moments.

"Robbie's calling me," Tori called. "But I don't suppose that I should answer it, since we're practically in the house already."

Cat's sunny ringtone rang out. "Now he's calling me!" she squealed.

"Ignore it," said Jade. "We're almost inside. We'll…_surprise_ him."

"Oh, goody," said Cat. "I love surprises!"

Jade slowly climbed out of Beck's convertible, jingling the keys in her hand. She couldn't help but be in a good mood as Hayley and Tara climbed out behind her, whining the entire time. She couldn't wait to see the look on their _faces_ when they realized that they were "babysitting" Trina Vega…

As they neared the house, she could hear Trina's moaning through the front door. Oh god. She hoped Trina hadn't gotten too much of her mouth blood on Beck. Blood was cool in itself, but not when it was another girl's blood on her boyfriend's arm. Or face. Or anything like that.

"This is not how I wanted to spend my Saturday night," she heard Beck complain. Jade fought a laugh. He spent most of his Saturday nights either out with the gang or hanging out with Jade alone. They'd originally planned to go catch a movie, but this had been ten times better. Besides, they had the whole night ahead of them. Beck was just being a baby.

"All right," she whisper-snapped. "Tori, you're going to go inside and talk to the guys, and then we'll ring the doorbell and _these two_"—she gestured at Hayley and Tara—"will go in afterwards."

Tori opened the door. "Hey, guys!" she chirped. Jade stayed behind the door, waiting for the perfect moment.

A cacophony of sounds broke out.

"There she is!"

"How could you leave us to take care of that monster?" That was Andre. He sounded angry, which for some reason was hilarious to Jade.

"You know Jade stole my car keys?" Beck sounded pissed. Whoops.

"I am covered _in Trina's gum blood_!"

As the yelling intensified, Jade figured they better make their move before everything got too out of hand. She didn't want Beck to be _too_ mad at her later…

She rang the doorbell. "Come in!" Tori called.

Jade shoved Tara forward, and the two disgruntled girls walked into the Vegas' living room. Tori smiled. "You don't have to take care of Trina anymore tonight," she said cheerfully.

"Yeah," hissed Robbie. "You do!"

"No," said Tori, "they do!"

Jade couldn't see, but she assumed that Beck's eyebrows had shot up the way they always did when he was confused. "Them?" he asked, his voice heavy with disbelief.

"She's the girl you're babysitting!" continued Tori.

Jade distinctly heard Trina mumble something, but she didn't really care. She craned her neck through the window to see Hayley's reaction as Tori calmly explained how to take care of Trina. Their noses immediately wrinkled in disgust.

"Eww!"

"Gross!"

Jade was enjoying this immensely.

Tori leaned over. "Yeah, it's worse than you think." And for the second time that night, Jade appreciated Tori Vega.

"I don't want to flush her bloody gum holes!" Jade grinned widely at the look on Hayley's pinched face. _Suck it, gank_.

"Too bad! _You_ lost the bet!" Tori skipped over to Andre. "Alright, let's go to Karaoke Dokie to see a special friend of ours do a song," she added mysteriously.

Jade was momentarily confused until she remembered that they'd run into Sikowitz in the Karaoke Dokie parking lot ("Jade! Cat! You've inspired me to sing a song as well! Come back later to hear me sing!"). Eagerly, she stood back down from her strained place against the window. This night just got better and better.

She figured she should make an appearance before they all left, so Jade swaggered casually through the open door. "Let's leave these two ladies to their job," she said casually, as if commenting on a particularly interesting weather pattern or school assignment.

"Jade?" Andre, Robbie, and Beck spoke at the same time.

"Hi guys!" Cat bounded in after her.

Andre looked between them. "You—her—and you—this?" He gestured wildly between Tori, Cat, and Jade.

"Don't worry about it!" said Tori brightly. Andre just shrugged and followed her out the door with Robbie and Cat.

Finally, only Beck and Jade were left in the room.

"I should be mad at you."

Jade shrugged. "Probably, but you're not."

"I take it you're not going to apologize for stealing my car keys?"

They both knew the answer to that question, but Jade pretended to consider it anyway. "No," she said mock-thoughtfully. Beck rolled his eyes, but held out his hand anyway. She took it.

"Come on," she ordered. "We're going to be late."

"Hey!" a squeal behind them. "You can't leave us here to take care of _that_!"

Beck looked at Jade briefly before turning back around to face Hayley. "Yeah, actually we can." And with that, he walked through the door with Jade. She fought a smile. Beck may have pretended to be al cool and mysterious, but in reality, he was just as easily irritated by stupidity as Jade was.

Once they were outside, he turned to face her. "Let me guess: you're not going to tell me how on Earth you got _them_ to take care of Trina?"

"Nope," she answered calmly. Beck stared at her for a moment.

"You," he said finally, "are ridiculous." Despite his obvious irritation, Jade could hear the smile beginning to break through his voice.

She shrugged. "Yeah, yeah, whatever." Beck simply shook his head and led her to the car.

"By the way," he asked, "who is this 'special friend' that we're seeing?"

"Oh…you'll see."

…

The opening notes of the song were still just as annoying as Jade remembered, but as Sikowitz strolled down the stage, she couldn't help the laugh. Beck was laughing, too. She put her arm around him, and he immediately leaned into her, lacing his fingers through hers. Good. He clearly wasn't mad at her anymore.

Pretty soon, Jade pulled Beck up to cheer, and they gasped with laughter as Sikowitz wiggled his hips.

"How did you do this?" Beck shouted. It took Jade a minute to realize that he was talking to her.

"This?" she screamed back.

"Yeah, this!" he responded. "Getting Sikowitz to sing, getting them to take care of Trina…how the heck did you manage it? I know this was part of your master plan."

The Sikowitz thing had just been a lucky coincidence, but Beck didn't need to know that. "I have my ways," she yelled, and Beck just laughed, pulling her closer to him.

It was times like these, Jade reflected, when she appreciated Beck the most: the two of them were cheering wildly and laughing hysterically, not caring where they were or who saw them. As Sikowitz ended the performance by dumping water on himself (_what the_…?), Jade joined her friends in rushing towards the stage. Somehow, they'd managed to salvage their Saturday night after all.

**Look for another update in the near future! Hope you liked it.**


	11. Never Touch Me

**I'm so so so sorry that there's been a decently long delay between chapters! Unfortunately, I've started school now, which means that I won't be able to update as often as I'd like. However, I haven't forgotten about this – I promise! I hope you guys haven't either, because I'm so grateful for all of the feedback I've gotten. As a sort of reward for the long wait, this chapter is pretty long.**

**This particular chapter is from "Ice Cream for Ke$ha," an episode which I've been planning to do for a while. I'm dedicating this to InfinityForever7, who really wanted to see a one-shot about this episode. This chapter was also partially inspired by the new 'Jade with Tots' video, which reveals a little more of Jade's background and relationship with her father. I liked the added character depth it gave her, so I included it here. Hope you like it!**

…

_Ring!_

"Ugh," Jade groaned, groping blindly around the nightstand for her phone. It was a Saturday morning, and she'd been looking forward to her usual routine of sleeping in. Whoever was calling her was going to regret it. Locating her phone, she flipped it over and was annoyed to see her boyfriend's name on the caller I.D. After dating her for two years, he should have been well aware that calling her before noon was _not_ going to win him any favors.

"_What_?" she snarled, slamming her phone open.

"Good morning to you too," said Beck on the other line. Jade was irritated at how cheerful he sounded, considering that he had just woken her up at, oh, nine o'clock on a Saturday morning.

"Why are you calling me?" she demanded.

"Because we're supposed to be at Tori's right now?" Beck answered, his tone implying that the answer should have been obvious.

"Why on Earth would I want to be at _Vega's_ at nine a.m. on a Saturday?"

"You offered to help with that Kesha thing, remember?"

Something stirred in the back of her memory, but she ignored it resolutely. "No."

"Tori and Andre made us all promise that we would come over to her house and help them with that ice cream contest."

"Why would I have agreed to that?"Jade hated ice cream, and wasn't particularly partial to Tori, either.

"I don't know," he said, sounding moderately amused. "But you said you'd help when Tori was going on about it at lunch yesterday. Remember, she asked us?"

Damn it. He was right. Jade faintly remembered agreeing to help Andre and Tori win their stupid contest, because a private concert would be cool. But she hadn't really been paying attention when Tori was talking, and had only nodded absentmindedly when Tori went through the details. Which had apparently included meeting early on a Saturday morning. She certainly didn't want to go, but she also didn't like the thought of Beck hanging out with _Tori_ and the rest of their friends without Jade there. Just in case people got the wrong idea or something.

"Fine," she growled. "Pick me up." It wasn't a request.

"I'm already here."

"God, why?"

"Because I was supposed to be picking you up already?"

"Ugh, fine. I'll be there in a few minutes." She clicked her phone off and slammed it back onto her nightstand with so much force that the tabletop rattled. She really, really didn't want to go. As if the Saturday morning time slot wasn't enough, Jade _hated_ ice cream – she hadn't eaten any since she was five or six. Today was going to suck. At least she had the prospect of a private concert from Kesha to keep her going, since Beck clearly wasn't going to be much help.

She had just climbed out of bed and crawled to the bathroom when she heard a knock at her door. "Come in," she called irritably. In the mirror, she watched as her dark-haired boyfriend slid into the room and perched himself on the edge of her bed.

"I let myself in." She didn't respond. "You ready to go?"

"Not even close," she answered smoothly, dabbing eyeliner on her face. He came up behind her.

"That's what I thought. Let's go." Beck tugged on her elbow.

"No!" She pulled away, irritated, and he laughed easily, sliding his arms around her waist. "Just give me a few minutes!"

"Okay." He still didn't move. Not that she minded, exactly, but his presence was distracting. Especially since Beck apparently wanted Jade to hurry.

After a minute, she pulled slid a purple hoodie over her head. "Okay. You can take me now," she said resolutely. "Even though I look awful."

"You look fine," Beck said easily. "Let's just go."

Jade rolled her eyes. "Whatever." This was going to be a long morning.

…

If Jade hadn't hated ice cream before this morning, she definitely despised it now. The day was inching along, and so far all they'd found were the letters K and A. Jade's hands were all sticky from the ice cream, her fingers were aching from clamping the spoon so tightly, and she'd spilled on her favorite black boots. She sat on the couch, steadily growing grumpier by the minute as the others babbled on about letters.

"Okay, we're never going to spell Ke$ha!" she blurted out as Cat found another 'A.'

Robbie nodded from across the room. "Why are there so many Ks and As?"

"I don't know, but we'd be doing pretty well if we were trying to win a concert from Akakakak," said Tori, clearly trying to be upbeat and witty. Jade rolled her eyes.

Andre just shrugged from his position by the sink. "I guess they gotta make some of the letters hard to find or everyone could win."

"Well, I'm sick of this!" Jade burst out. She continued with the first thing that popped into her head. "Ice cream reminds me of my childhood."

"You didn't have a happy childhood?" asked Cat innocently.

Jade thought for a minute about what to say. On the one hand, she _really_ didn't want to explain her life's story to a roomful of people who probably didn't care. On the other hand, she still wanted to say something witty in response. "My favorite toy was a hammer," she said sardonically. "You finish the puzzle." There, that ought to throw them a little bit.

From the side of her vision, she could see that Beck had stopped chewing and was giving her a strange look. Well, good. He was the one who had dragged her unwilling, angry butt here in the first place, and he was going to have to deal with the repercussions. Still, she was surprised when he ignored the implications of her phrase. Beck knew a decent amount about her troubled relationship with her family, but Jade rarely ever spoke about her childhood. Part of her wanted him to notice.

Apparently he thought she was just being dramatic. "You know," he said, "you don't have to help."

"_Don't _test me," she hissed, and he threw up his hands in mock-surrender.

"What?"

Tori interrupted them. "If we do win the contest, only the people who helped find the letters get to come," she said nonchalantly. Jade considered this. On the one hand, she really, _really_ hated ice cream, and it didn't look like their little venture was going to end soon. On the other hand, she really did want to see Ke$ha live. Plus, the thought of Beck and _Vega_ and all of the others enjoying a private concert while Jade sat at home wasn't exactly appealing to her. Instead of arguing, she simply repeated the phrase in her mock-Tori voice. If Jade was going to be miserable, Tori wasn't going to be happy, either.

"I don't talk like that!" Tori said defensively. Jade smirked. Mission accomplished.

After a few more minutes of ice cream (_ugh_), Tori shrieked. "Ahh! E! I got an E!"

Jade couldn't stop herself from clapping along with everyone else as Tori danced around in excitement (although her "yay" was tinged with sarcasm). Maybe now they would actually get somewhere.

After Tori and Andre finished celebrating, Robbie picked up the giant tub of ice cream. Jade smirked. She wasn't sure where this was headed, but she had a nagging feeling that the morning was about to get better.

She was right. At Tori's inquiry, Robbie smiled cheerfully. "I don't think we should waste all of this ice cream, so I'm gonna take it down to that playground on the corner and give it to some little kids." He shrugged bashfully, like he was waiting for everyone else to congratulate him on his good deed. Jade almost snorted.

Immediately, Beck tried to reason with Robbie. The plan was obviously a bad idea—who on Earth _wouldn't_ be freaked out by a strange boy with a vat of 'free ice cream' for little kids on the playground?—but suddenly, Jade really, _really_ wanted Robbie to do it. She spent enough time putting up with other peoples' stupidity, notably his (and that stupid puppet's as well). It was about time he experienced the consequences of his idiocy firsthand. Plus, violence amused Jade. Especially when Robbie was the one getting beat up. This was her one opportunity to brighten the morning.

Jade felt her irritation flare up as Beck tried to talk Robbie out of his plan. "I don't know how kids' mothers are going to react to a strange guy giving out ice cream—"

"Let him _do it_," Jade demanded. Beck was _not_ going to ruin her entertainment for the day. She knew he was usually just as annoyed by Robbie as Jade was, so what was his problem?

Beck turned to Jade to fight back, but she was having none of it. "I seriously don't think that's a very good idea—" he began, but she talked over him, her voice rising until it was shrill and demanding.

"I said to let him do it. _Let him do it!_" She knew she'd won before the disagreement even started. Beck raised his hands, clearly not wanting to argue with her when he heard the pent-up frustration in her tone. She almost smirked. It was so easy to get him to bend to her will. She knew she was being slightly bratty, but she didn't care.

"Good luck!" said Beck quickly, his tone suggesting otherwise. Robbie just grinned happily and left with his ice cream.

The morning dragged into the afternoon, and there were no more letters to be found. They opened cartons and cartons and cartons of ice cream—Jade lost count by one PM—but all they found were stupid As and Ks, and the occasional E. Jade's muscles were stiffening from sitting in the same place; eventually, she stood up, stretched, and made her way to the kitchen counter.

"God, this sucks so badly!"

"Yeah, but think about how great it'll be to get a concert from Ke$ha!" said Andre. Jade didn't understand how he could be so endlessly enthusiastic. Even Tori sounded weary.

"Plus, it's going to be so great when I don't have to be Trina's _slave_."

Jade kicked the counter, feeling her temper flare. "Let me make one thing clear, Vega" she said sourly. "I am doing this for Ke$ha. _Not_ for you. Your happiness is nonexistent on my list of priorities." She stabbed her spoon into the ice cream.

"Yeah, yeah, I know." Tori didn't seem too disturbed, but Beck shot Jade a warning look anyway. His message was clear. _Calm down_. He stood up, stretching (his shirt rode up, and Jade smugly admired the smooth, hard abs underneath).

"I'm going to go buy more ice cream. Jade"—he looked at her pointedly—"will you come with me?"

She groaned audibly and glared at Beck, still mad at him for refusing to take her side. "I am up to my elbows _in ice cream_. Which I hate. The _last_ thing I want to do is go buy _more_ of it." Jade turned around, folding her arms across her chest to enunciate her point. Beck merely shrugged exasperatedly as he made his way out the front door.

And so it continued.

"K."

"K."

"A." Even Andre didn't sound so chipper now.

"K."

"K!"

Jade couldn't take it anymore. "Okay, this is actually causing me pain." She paused. "And not the good kind," she added. Tori and Andre immediately looked uncomfortable at that. Good. If Jade had to be miserable, she might as well amuse herself by messing around with the others. Of course, she hadn't been completely kidding—she really did enjoy certain pain (especially when it involved Beck…)—but this ice cream was one torture that she was not willing to put up with any longer.

"I'm out of ice cream!" Cat called, just as Jade's phone beeped. It was Beck. _Be back in ten_, it said. Jade looked up.

"Beck will be back with more soon." Just then, the door opened.

Jade almost didn't recognize Robbie as he walked in the door. His shirt was torn and messy; he had cuts on his face, and a very prominent black eye. Jade could barely contain her squeal of joy at his appearance. This was better than even she'd expected.

Apparently, Tori did not share these feelings. "Robbie, what happened?" she gasped.

Robbie looked more pissed than Jade had seen him in a while. "I went to the park. I got off my bike, and I shouted 'hey kids, who wants free ice cream?'" He paused, his voice rising a few octaves, and Jade noticed gleefully that his sleeve was ripped. "And then the mothers chased me into an alley and beat me! With sticks!" he gasped, collapsing on the couch. Jade couldn't prevent the grin that crossed her face. Maybe it was cruel—alright, it was definitely cruel—but she couldn't help but enjoy seeing Robbie get punished for his stupidity for once.

"Sticks?" asked Cat.

"One big mom _stepped on my neck!_"

Jade merely snickered. "You gotta love big moms," she said loftily, checking her PearPhone to see if her camera app was working. This needed documentation.

Just then, Beck walked through the door. At Andre's query, Jade looked up to see that his hands were empty. Uh oh. "Check Ke$ha's last update," he said calmly, holding up his phone. With a sinking feeling, Jade started scrolling through her phone to Ke$ha's page.

It was over. The contest was over. Tori began to read the words out loud, but Jade wasn't listening; all she could focus on was the sudden anger that surging through her veins. She had spent her entire morning—her entire freaking day, really—opening ice cream, which she hated, and they weren't even going to win the contest? She was going to kill Tori. And Beck, for dragging her into this mess.

"Great," she bellowed. "I spent _nine hours_ of my life _violating_ pints of ice cream for _nothing_!"

At least everyone else seemed just as miserable (well, except Beck, who was coolly swigging soda. But then, Beck never really reacted emotionally to anything, so this wasn't entirely a surprise). As Vega whined loudly about being Trina's assistant, Jade grabbed the soda out of Beck's hand.

"You," she snapped. "I want to go home."

"Okay." He looked unconcerned.

"NOW!"

"Got it." He picked the soda back up and held out his arm. She took it, swinging her legs over, and hopped off of the counter with surprising grace (considering how loud her boots were, this was actually quite a feat). Without a second glance, Jade pulled Beck towards the door, just as Trina's loud shriek ("_Tori!_") echoed down the stairs. With one last scowl at Tori, Jade sauntered out the door and into Beck's car.

…

The ride home was quiet for a while as Beck drove Jade back to her house. He knew from experience that it was better to let her cool off than to try and reason with her. As they pulled into her driveway, however, he saw that Jade's house was completely dark. This wasn't entirely unusual, but he always felt bad watching his girlfriend disappear into a dark house. There was something unnerving about watching her black clothing and hair vanish into the blackness of her front hallway.

"Home alone?" he asked, keeping his voice light.

Her response was flippant. "Yeah, dad's with the new wife somewhere, so I've got the place to myself."

Most people wouldn't have noticed the slight bitterness that laced her speech, but Beck wasn't just anyone. "Let's go back to my place instead," he said easily. The expression on her face said he hadn't fooled her; she knew he was worried about her. She laughed.

"I'm not a child, Beck. I can take care of myself."

"I know that." He placed a hand over hers. "But I would like you to come back with me for the night."

"Why should I?" she burst out angrily. "This is all _your_ fault!"

"What do you mean?" he asked, confused.

"You dragged me into this stupid ice cream thing and made me sit there, all day, opening stupid _ice cream_ that I hate! God, Beck, did you _want_ me to have a bad day?" She crossed her arms, sulking.

"It's just ice cream! And you hate everything! Newsflash: sometimes, you're just going to have to deal with things that you don't like!"

"You don't get it." She looked at him coolly. "This isn't like panties, or the color yellow, or any of those stupid other things that I can't stand. I legitimately could not hate them as much as I hate ice cream."

"Because it reminds you of your childhood?" he asked, exasperated. "Speaking of which, what the hell was that all about?"

"Excuse me?"

"That whole 'my favorite toy was a hammer' thing. I've never heard that before."

Jade stopped to take a breath for a minute, caught off-guard. "I don't like talking about when I was little."

"Jade," he said calmingly. Beck knew that she had issues with her father, and that they didn't get along, but he didn't usually press her for details about her family life. Still, he was curious. "Why ice cream, specifically?"

Something strange flickered across her face. When she answered, her voice was controlled, but Beck could hear the pent-up anger behind it. "When I was a kid, there was an ice cream truck that always parked next to my elementary school. Since it's so damn hot here, everyone always went there after school, but my mom wouldn't take me because she said that ice cream would make me fat." She paused, laughing curtly. "My father picked me up on Thursdays, and every time he would promise that he'd buy me ice cream the next time. He never did. Every single Thursday, I'd ask him to buy it for me, and he'd say, 'not now, but I promise we'll get it next time.' Out of every week in the year, he only actually remembered to get me ice cream once."

She leaned back in her seat, apparently finished with her story. Beck couldn't help but feel a certain sense of anti-climax. "So that's it?" he asked, confused. "That's why you hate ice cream so much? Because your father wouldn't buy it for you?"

"What I said was that I hate ice cream because it reminds me of my childhood." She scowled. "My entire childhood was full of my parents fighting and my dad making promises that he never kept. Ice cream was just one of the many. So I don't eat it," she said simply.

Beck shouldn't have been surprised by the notion of his girlfriend swearing off ice cream forever just because her father had broken his promise to buy it for her. She'd always been dramatic. "So," he said, just to be sure, "you swore off ice cream because your father broke his promise to you?"

"Partly." Jade rolled her eyes and turned to face him. "He bought it once. At the very end of the year, he picked me up and handed me a five to go buy an ice cream cone. The entire ride home, I didn't talk because I was busy eating it and I was so excited. When we got home, he told me to get out of the car, and then drove away." She laughed hollowly. "He called later to tell my mom that he wasn't coming back."

For a minute, there was silence as Beck processed this information. He'd always known that Jade's parents divorced when she was younger, but he'd never known the details. He tried to staunch the sudden wave of pity that rolled over him (Jade hated people feeling sorry for her), but it was no use. He reached across the seat and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and she leaned in. For a minute, they just sat like that, his fingers playing idly with her hair.

Still, something was bothering him. "The hammer?" he asked lightly.

She shrugged. "I always liked to break things."

"Jade. Come on. What was the real reason?"

"I just like to break things!" she said defensively. At his pointed look, she relented a little. "They were always fighting, and breaking things with the hammer got them to stop, and pay attention to me instead." She smiled bitterly. "After my dad left, whenever I was forced to visit him, I'd pull out a hammer and break things in his apartment when he wasn't paying attention—mugs, picture frames, whatever." Noticing his neutral expression, she added, "he deserved it for leaving!"

Beck kept his face neutral, but he still felt bad when he saw Jade's expression, a cross between hurt resignation and vindictive fury. Wordlessly, he took his hand from Jade's shoulders and turned the key in the ignition. The car roared to life.

"Where are we going?" Jade snapped, but her voice lacked its usual shrillness.

"My place. You're gonna stay with me tonight," he said casually, as if that were a normal thing for a sixteen year-old guy to say. Actually, it kind of was a normal thing for them, but still.

"Fine," she sighed, but Beck caught a hint of relief in her voice.

…

The next Monday, Beck picked Jade up as usual. She brightened as he pulled into the driveway, and then quickly tried to hide her expression. Beck grinned. Jade would deny it up and down, but Beck knew she'd had a decent weekend after all.

After they stopped for Jade's coffee ("I said two sugars!" "I put two sugars in!"), they finally arrived in school, bantering casually. Beck opened the door for her, holding out his hand; she took it, and they made their way down the hallway. He was just laughing at a funny story she'd told (involving a dog, some broccoli, and a pair of scissors. Somehow it made sense) when they approached Tori's locker.

Beck could see that she looked exhausted. Poor Tori. He could only imagine what Trina had put her through all weekend. Apparently, Jade had noticed as well. "Ooh, you don't look happy!" She smirked.

"I'm not."

"_Yay_."

Beck rolled his eyes."Trina giving you a rough time?" he asked sympathetically.

"Yes!" Tori turned to him, a pleading look on her face. "Do you know she sleep sweats?"

Eww. Out of all of the things she could have said, that was not what Beck had expected. Evidently, Jade felt the same way. "_Sleep sweats_?" she asked, sounding revolted. Beck didn't blame her.

Tori immediately launched into a story. "Yeah! She made me go into her room last night every two hours, with a sponge, lift her arms, and—"

She was interrupted by a loud squeal. "_Tori!_" Trina rushed up. "Hey. Answer my phone!" She held out a PearPhone, still ringing.

Amused, Beck watched as Tori attempted to stand up to her sister. "I don't wanna!"

Jade looked like Christmas had come early. "You're her assistant, so do what she says." Beck supposed he shouldn't have expected anything less from his girlfriend. He leaned against the lockers, still brushing the sleep from his eyes, as he watched the scene unfold.

Trina placed her arm on Jade's. "Thank you, Jade!" She'd barely gotten the words out when Jade whirled around.

"_Never_ touch me."

Beck tried to stop himself from chuckling, but failed. Somehow, he still found Jade's blatant rudeness endearing. As Tori answered the phone, he stood with a bored expression on his face tuning out. Finally, Trina grabbed the phone from Tori and rushed off down the hall.

"That's my life now." Tori sounded defeated. To Jade's credit, she merely shrugged along with Beck rather than mocking Tori further. It was a shitty situation, but it wasn't like they could do anything about it.

"Hey Tori, come look at this!" Beck and Jade both looked up at the sound of Cat's voice. She was standing with Sinjin and a crowd of other students, all of whom were watching a computer screen intensely. Instinctively, he took Jade's hand, and she followed him obediently. She really did seem tamer than usual this morning. They ambled towards the crowd, Jade swinging her arm over Beck's shoulder as they leaned in to see Ke$ha's face on the screen. Hmm. Apparently, the supposed "winner" had faked his letters, and the ice cream contest was back on again.

Beck couldn't help himself from smiling at the glee that filled Tori's voice. "I could still win the contest!" He could see that Jade had allowed herself to smile as well. God, she really was in a good mood this morning.

"Run for it, Tori. Run for it!" Sinjin called as Tori flew towards the door.

As the crowd slowly broke up, Beck wrapped his arm around Jade's shoulders again. They turned to walk away when Sinjin's chirping voice stopped them.

"Hi, Jade! Can I help you win the contest too?"

"No."

She turned on her heel, and Beck followed her dutifully. He bit back a smile. Somehow, he felt a tiny bit relieved that Jade's good mood still didn't extend to Sinjin.

**Reviews motivate me to update faster, I swear! They remind me that there are people waiting to read the next chapter. So let me know if there's anything you'd like me to write! I'm still working on something, but I'm open to any suggestions.**


	12. We Haven't Been Fighting!

**Hello again! Thanks for all of the wonderful encouragement. This chapter covers Beck's Profile Video and is dedicated to JadePlusBeck, a really great reviewer who asked for this to be done a while back. I always thought it was interesting to watch Beck's expressions during the video – especially at the end, when he sort of forgets what he's saying and starts to kiss her. I hope you like it!**

_Beep_.

"Hey!" Beck dropped the remote when he saw that the camera was rolling. "If you go to Hollywood Arts you may know me, Beck. If you don't go to Hollywood Arts, I'm Beck." He smiled, hoping that he was coming across as easygoing and congenial rather than uptight or smug. What else could he say about himself? "Let's see. Uhh, I'm an actor. I really love acting, whether it's on stage, or on camera—"

Footsteps in the background interrupted his train of thought. Beck tried to block out the sound and continued. "If I'm acting, I'm pretty much good."

The noise grew louder, and he recognized the sound of his girlfriend's combat boots on the hard tile floor. A second later, Jade herself appeared, sitting beside him on the edge of the stage.

He raised his eyebrows. "Hello?"

She didn't bother saying hello back. "That coffee?" she asked, pointing downwards. Typical Jade.

"Yes." Beck still wasn't sure what she was doing here, but he had a feeling it wasn't simply to keep him company. He tapped his fingers impatiently as she grabbed his coffee cup and took a swig out of it. Evidently, she noticed.

"What?" she asked irritably, looking into the camera.

Beck gestured helplessly. "I'm doing my video profile thing for the Slap," he said, hoping she got the message.

"I know!" She looked at him like he'd said something crazy. "Go ahead."

Hmm. So Jade had come here to insert herself into his profile video. Somehow, Beck wasn't surprised. "How—how did this turn into a two-person thing?" he asked, feigning confusion. Sure, he loved his girlfriend, but that didn't mean he needed her in every part of his life. In fact, he had actually made a conscious effort to do this when Jade was busy, since they seemed to have a bad habit of arguing on-camera.

"Well," she answered in what she clearly thought was a reasonable tone, "I'm your girlfriend, and I think anyone who clicks on your profile should be aware of that."

Exasperated, he reached forward and turned the camera off. "Jade, this is my profile video! Not yours. Don't you have rehearsal or something?"

"Nope, Sikowitz gave us the afternoon off." She leaned back, unconcerned.

"Okay, well…isn't there somewhere else that you should be?"

"Ehh. Not really."

He sighed. She really wasn't getting the message. "Jade, can't I do this by myself for a little while?"

"Nope."

He could only imagine what people would think if his entire profile video consisted of him and his girlfriend bickering (which, at this point, was pretty much inevitable). Still, he was really busy tonight, and his friends had been bugging him to get on the Slap for weeks. Plus, he only had access to Sikowitz's camera for another day. He really needed to get this done. Rolling his eyes, he picked up the remote again and clicked the camera back on.

"Okay, she won't leave"—he felt Jade drag his arm around her shoulders, which he ignored—"so I'm gonna be nice and let her sit here while I do my video profile."

Jade snorted derisively. "_Let _me."

God, she really wasn't going to make this easy for him, was she? He shot her a look before he continued. "I take acting really seriously, but not like, in a—a _pretentious_ way." He heard Jade sigh, saw her eyes roll at his words. Beck pretended not to notice. He wanted anyone seeing it to view Beck Oliver as ambitious, but approachable. As far as he was concerned, he hadn't said anything untrue. "My favorite movie of all time is probably On the Waterfront…"

His voice trailed off as Jade interrupted curtly. "We've been dating for two years, and we've been exclusive for about a year and a half." She smiled pleasantly as he rolled his eyes this time (he almost wished there was an eye-rolling Olympics. He'd win for sure).

"Is that necessary?" he asked, keeping his voice deliberately calm.

"Is _what_ necessary?"

"For you to…say that all.."

He'd gone too far. Dammit. Instantly, he voice rose, a familiar demanding note in her tone. "What did I say that would make you ask me 'is that necessary?'"

Shecouldn't be serious, could she? Jade _had_ to understand that she wasn't the center of _every_ aspect of his life. His voice rose plaintively.

"This is _my_ video profile!"

"Which is supposed to let people know what you're all about!"

"But—but you're—you're making it about…you."

"_Us_."

He really should have made sure that she'd had play practice this afternoon before he'd borrowed Sikowitz's camera. Wait a minute. She'd shot _her_ video alone. "I wasn't in _your_ video profile," he pointed out.

"I asked you to be in it. You said you were 'too busy' hanging out with your _dad_."

Now Beck remembered. It had been the day after they'd gotten back together, and they'd been sitting at lunch, listening to Tori go on and on about her video profile on the Slap. As the bell had rung, Jade had pulled him aside, casually mentioning that he needed to be in her video. Which she was shooting that afternoon. He'd pointed out that he had to go pick up his dad at the hospital, which had shut her up pretty quickly (his father hadn't been seriously injured by the dog, but he'd still needed to stay an extra day for observation). At the time, she hadn't seemed annoyed. Maybe Beck just needed to remind her of the details.

"He was in the hospital." That should have been enough information.

"_So?_"

That made him pause. Apparently, she didn't seem to remember. He didn't exactly want people on the Slap to hear all about 'the dog incident,' so he turned the camera off. Then he turned to face Jade. "You put him there!"

"Oh. Right." She looked a little sheepish, but didn't apologize. Of course. "Well, that makes it worse! If you weren't in my profile, then I should definitely be in yours!"

"That doesn't even make sense!"

"What do you mean? Of course it makes sense! If people don't see us together at some point, they might assume that you're single! Which you're _not_." She laced her arm protectively through his and resumed drinking her coffee.

"Okay." He sighed. "You know what? I'm not going to have this argument with you. I'll do this some other time." She glared at him, but he ignored her and switched on the camera. He wasn't entirely sure who he was talking to, but he felt that he should emphasize why he was turning off the camera, just in case someone ever saw this footage. Matter-of-factly, he looked directly into the camera. "I'm gonna do my video profile some other time."

"Because he doesn't want me to be a part of it." Jade nodded resolutely, and Beck sighed.

"That's not what I said."

"Then just use what we've already shot!"

She had to be kidding. "What, of us fighting?" he asked incredulously.

Jade looked surprised. "We haven't been fighting!" she protested.

Beck was always amazed by how easily Jade could slip in and out of being mad at him. A minute ago, she'd been borderline-furious at him; now, she merely sounded offended at the thought that he even thought they'd had a bad argument. It was true that they hadn't really been "fighting" (by their standards, anyway), but Beck still figured he should make sure that she serious. Just in case this was some sort of trick. "So you want me to use _this_ as my video profile."

She shrugged nonchalantly. "I'm fine with it."

He stopped to think. He really didn't want to re-film the stupid profile video; he was only joining the Slap because Jade wanted him to. And all things considered, they hadn't_ really_ been fighting (too much). If she was fine with it, then why not save himself the extra work?

"You sure?" he asked, a tiny hint of disbelief still evident in his voice. He turned to look her in the eyes.

"I said I'm fine with it!" Her voice was softer—was that a hint of playfulness he heard?—and as his brown eyes met her blue ones, he found that he couldn't tear himself away. Suddenly, he couldn't remember why he'd even protested her being here. A small part of him knew that Jade was playing at his weakness, but somehow, he couldn't remember why that was a problem. When the smile played across her lips, he knew he was a goner. He leaned in, and their lips met.

Jade broke the brief kiss, leaning into his shoulder. Beck still wasn't sure what had just happened, but he turned back towards the camera obediently. "Okay," he said, his voice cracking with surprise. His mind was still fuzzy. "I'm just…gonna use…this?"

He turned his head to smile at Jade just as he felt a cool hand slide under his chin. Before he even realized what he was doing, her mouth had crashed into his. He leaned in—too strongly, it turned out, because she nearly fell back against the stairs. But somehow, he couldn't bring himself to stop, and Jade didn't seem to mind. Still, something niggled at him. Had Jade planned this? She couldn't have intentionally come to the studio, knowing that they'd end up making out on camera. Could she...?

She leaned into him again, her lips capturing his hungrily, and his mind went blank. Ah, well. It wasn't like they had anything better to do that afternoon.

…

Sometime later, Beck emerged from the auditorium, still slightly dazed. Absently, he fiddled with the video camera. He was worried that he had accidentally filmed a little _too_ much, so he wanted to make sure he'd turned the camera off properly. God knew what Jade would do if he'd posted _that_ kind of stuff on his video profile…

"Beck!" The voice that called out to him was high and fluttery—certainly not Jade's—and as he looked up, he realized that the speaker was a tall blonde. Vaguely he recognized her from his Spanish class.

"Hi…Sasha," he managed, grappling to remember her name.

She spotted the camera in his hand. "What were you doing with _that_?"

"Oh, just…you know. Movie stuff."

His brain still wasn't functioning properly, but he could see the flirtatious smile that had spread across her face at his words. "Movie stuff?" she giggled. "What kind? Because I'd _love_ to be a part of it."

"I bet you would."

Beck turned to see Jade strolling casually through the auditorium door, clad in Beck's maroon shirt. He braced himself for a tirade, but for some reason, Jade didn't seem mad. "Here's the thing. I don't think you want to be in the type of _movie_ that Beck and I were filming in there." She smirked (Beck couldn't help but notice the wicked glint in her eye), and Sasha's eyes widened. Slowly, Beck watched comprehension dawn on her face as she took in their haphazard clothing and mussed hair. He could only imagine what was going through the blond girl's head.

"Oh…um…well, I didn't know," she stammered.

Jade snorted. "This is a _closed_ project. If you know what I mean." She laced her arm through his once again, and Beck felt himself being pulled away. "Bye, Sarah!" Jade called as they moved down the hallway, ignoring when the girl faintly corrected "it's Sasha."

When they were out in the parking lot, Beck turned to look at her. "Jade! You can't just _say _people things like that."

She didn't even look fazed. "Things like what?"

"You made it sound like we were…filming porn! Or…something like that."

"It's not like I really _lied_…" she said teasingly.

"We were just making out!" he protested. "With the camera off, thank you."

She pouted. "Oh, okay. Did you _want_ her involved in what we were doing?"

He stopped for a moment, exasperated. "No, but—"

"Why did it take you a second before you said no?" she demanded. "You shouldn't have had to think about that!"

"Are you serious?"

"Whatever. Let's just go." She tossed her head and climbed in the car, and Beck was surprised at how easily she let the issue drop. Maybe she was still a little lightheaded from their "activities" earlier, too.

Beck imitated Jade, clambering into the passenger's seat. He reached to put his wallet in the center console just as Jade reached over to put her water bottle in the cupholder.

Their eyes locked, and Beck was barely conscious of her arm brushing against his. Before he could react, he felt her hands cupping his face again as she pulled him towards her, lips moving eagerly against his.

What the hell. They could stay in school a little bit longer.

**Hope you liked it! I'm working on a longer episode now, so it might take a little while, but I promise I'll get it up.**

**Reviews make me smile. :)**


	13. Better Than a Double Cheeseburger

**I'm alive! Yes, I know I've been a bit AWOL lately…sorry about that. My sophomore year of college has been pretty insane—I'm a biology/physics double major and I play a varsity sport in the fall, so it's been pretty hectic. Nevertheless, I promise I'll get to work on a full episode next (I've been trying to do "Beck's Big Break" for a while, and "Helen Back Again" might lend itself to something…we'll see).**

**This is from Jade and Beck's Drive By Acting Exercise, which is one of my favorite Slap videos of all time. I always wondered what was going through Beck's head as Jade was doing the Jersey accent, so I decided to explore it a bit. Enjoy!**

"Man, I love Friday afternoons," said Andre enthusiastically. They had just sat through a seemingly-infinite Spanish class, and Beck had never been so glad to hear the bell in his life.

"Thank god," Beck agreed. He was excited for the weekend as well. Junior year was turning out to be harder than he'd expected, and he was looking forward to his first homework-free evening in five days.

"What're you up to, man? Want to hang with Tori and me tonight? We're gonna go see a movie or something."

"Nah, I can't. Jade and I are going to see that play in the city." He had gotten Jade tickets to see _Not Only the Good Die Young_ several months ago, and although she'd obviously tried her best to look unexcited by the news, he knew she was looking forward to it. Despite its rather depressing title (and subject), it was a popular off-Broadway play that both he and Jade had wanted to see for a while now.

"Oh, right!" Andre nodded. "I remember. That one where that family dies…"

"That's the one." Beck closed his locker with a bang, and the two of them set off down the hallway. Turning the corner, Beck saw Jade leaning against her locker, listening as Cat rambled on about something, gesturing enthusiastically.

"And so then I thought, what if horses could, you know, like, actually fly? So there would be literal 'horse-fly's?'" Cat giggled, and Jade simply rolled her eyes. Yet Beck couldn't help but notice that she hadn't said anything inflammatory about the inane concept. He smiled slightly. Maybe his girlfriend was in a good mood after all.

"Hey, babe." At the sound of his voice, Jade looked up, a relieved look on her face as she saw him and Andre approaching. "We should probably get going soon." They'd planned to go back to Beck's house for about an hour before going into the city, and he couldn't pretend he wasn't looking forward to some—er—_relaxing_ with his girlfriend after the long week.

"Good. Let's go," she said, taking his arm. "Bye, Cat." With an amused smile, Beck allowed himself to be pulled down the hallway and out into the parking lot.

"You excited?" He asked Jade, playfulness in his tone. She smirked slightly.

"Yeah, whatever. It's been a long day."

As they passed the snack cart at the edge of the parking lot, Beck felt Jade stop. He knew what was coming. "Coffee?" he asked, trying to keep his mood light. The last thing he wanted to do was start an argument and ruin their afternoon.

It was a good move. "Obviously," she answered loftily.

He fished out his wallet. "Two sugars," Beck told the young-looking kid behind the counter. He saw Jade trying to suppress a grin, and smirked.

"Excited for the weekend?" asked the coffee guy. Beck started telling him a little about the play, and was gesturing animatedly when a loud voice interrupted him.

"Jade! Beck!"

At the sounds of their names, both Beck and Jade turned around, Jade looking exasperated. Sikowitz was standing behind them holding a camcorder, and Beck fought the instinct to roll his eyes. This really, _really_ wasn't the time. They were going to be late if they didn't hurry soon.

"Hey, Sikowitz," he began uncomfortably.

Jade was surprisingly calm as she jumped in. "Listen, we really don't have time for, uh..."

"Drive-by acting challenge!"

Apparently Sikowitz wasn't fazed by Jade's audible sigh and eyeroll. Beck tried to intervene before things got too heated. "No, seriously," he said, "we gotta go to a—"

"Beck! You are a young man trying to place an order at a fast food restaurant."

Beck rolled his eyes, displeasure crossing his face. At this point, it might be faster to just do the scene and get Sikowitz to shut up.

"Okay," he said resignedly.

"Jade." Sikowitz turned the camera to Beck's girlfriend.

"_What_?" she spat, tilting her head angrily.

"You are working at the fast food restaurant." As soon as Beck heard that, he couldn't resist a small smirk. Like_ Jade_ would ever be caught working at a fast food place. Still, he knew by the way she had stopped arguing that she was going to do the scene. And since Jade never half-assed anything, Beck knew he was about to witness some very entertaining acting.

"Yeah?" She raised her eyebrows, clearly impatient.

"You're a weirdo," Sikowitz continued.

"Any specific kind of weirdo?" Beck couldn't blame Jade for asking. Sikowitz was infamous for giving frustratingly vague stage directions.

"You're a weird man."

Beck felt his eyebrows crease. Surely Sikowitz was going to give her some other information. Any male at Hollywood Arts—himself included—could technically be considered a "weird man." Still, Jade didn't seem too concerned. "A weird man," she said, nodding slowly. "Okay, but what kind of—"

"_Action!_"

They turned to face at each other, and Beck noticed that all of the emotion was gone from Jade's face. Apparently she really was in the mood to act. He wracked his brain. _Fast food restaurant._ "Um, I'll have a number three turbo combo—"

"_Holy cripes! _You are like, ridiculously handsome."

Beck nearly dropped his backpack in shock at the sound of his girlfriend's voice. Apparently, Jade had decided to use her "Jersey man" voice. He'd found about this particular talent of hers several months ago, when, with the group, she'd insisted that a decent actor should be able to mimic any sort of accent. At Andre's prodding, she'd burst into the Jersey accent, and they'd nearly died laughing. Beck fought the impulse to do the same now, forcing his cheekbones to remain neutral. "Thanks," he said. "Can I get, a, uh—"

"I swear on my mother's face, you are like, _nine _different kinds of attractive. Look at you!" She gestured up and down, face completely serious, but Beck saw the twinkle in her eye. He and Jade made a habit of trying to out-act each other whenever they got scenes like this. He focused his attention on the air behind her, pretending to be reading a menu. He couldn't break character…he wouldn't break character…

"What comes in a double cheeseburger?"

"You are _better _than a double cheeseburger." The fake intensity in Jade's voice almost broke him again. "I swear you are so gorgeous I can't even stand myself right now."

"I appreciate that, but could you just—"

But Jade, being Jade, couldn't let him steal her scene. Obviously. "Who are your parents?" she asked, cutting him off. "Is your father some kinda schmancy Greek God, and your mother—what is she? Some kind of exotic animal like a _fantastic_ lady antelope that one might see on a safari?" She made the last word extra long—safaaaari—and gestured enthusiastically as she spoke. Sikowitz looked amused, and Beck belatedly remembered that Jade had never actually used her Jersey man voice in class.

_Stay in character, Beck_. "Is there someone else I can order from?" He pretended to look around. Anything to avoid looking at Jade's face, because he knew that doing so would result in him bursting out in laughter.

"Ahhhh!" He stopped at Jade's cry. "Look at those abs!"

Huh. Weird direction, but he'd go with it. "My—my abs?" he asked doubtfully, looking down.

Jade looked at him, completely serious. "I—I understand that you are wearing a shirt, but if there's one thing I know for certain, it's that you have some phenomenal, pardon me, _exquisite_ abs." He decided that Jade must have been going out of her way to include heavily accented words; she pronounced certain like "soy-tin."

It was easier to stay in character now. "Okay," he said, blinking as if exasperated. "I'll have _one cheeseburger_."

Jade pointed at him, and he was taken aback by the earnest hysteria on her face. "One day, if I get married, and I have a child, I wanna take that baby, my own little baby child. I wanna let him take a nap. On your gorgeous abs. That's how impressed I am with your abs, my friend." She nodded resolutely, and Beck fought a smirk. He wasn't going to let her forget this. Every now and then, Jade berated him for not going to the gym very often, but he knew that she secretly thought his abs were awesome. Next time she mentioned the gym, he'd just bring up this little incident.

"One large fries."

"And even if you get fat one day, if you eat like a pig for nine years and gain, oh, I don't know, fourteen hundred pounds, _I won't care_!" She gestured into the empty air. "Because I'll know that those phenomenal abs are in there somewhere, buried underneath _all_ that fat."

Oh god. He couldn't take it any longer. Time to end the scene while he was still ahead.

"I'm never coming here again," he said seriously. He turned around and walked out of the frame so that Sikowitz wouldn't notice the laughter that threatened to break out at any moment.

From the expression in Jade's eyes, he knew that _she_ knew she'd won. Still, Jade being Jade, she had to get the last word in. She turned to Sikowitz, and Beck knew that she was going to try to get him to laugh. "Did you see his abs? Did you see that man's abs?"

"I did not." Sikowitz smiled, which was as good as a laugh from him.

"They're nice." Beck could see the smile beginning to break out, but Jade still fought resolutely to keep a straight face. He grinned. She was so entertaining sometimes.

"Nice abs. Yeah." She turned, and Beck knew she was about to break down. Sure enough, as soon as he caught her eye, she smiled full-on, and he snorted. By the time she'd reached him, he was doubled over, laughing.

They stood like that for a minute, him gasping for breath. Finally, Beck calmed himself. He looked up at Jade. Already she had recomposed herself, a disdainful smile playing around her lips. "What?" she asked innocently. "Surprised at my talent?"

"Where did _that_ come from?" he asked her mildly.

"I'm sorry, what are you talking about?" she asked carelessly.

"What made you decide to break out the accents and all?"

She shrugged. "You were obviously going to do the scene. I couldn't let you steal all of the attention."

"No, I don't think that's it." He pretended to think seriously for a minute, then looked at her seriously. "I think you _liked _it," he teased, poking her shoulder playfully. "I think you'd never Sikowitz to know, but you secretly _love_ things like that."

"I do not!" she protested, but she was lying and they both knew it. "I'm just a serious actor, that's all. Since you were _obviously_ willing to waste our time and do the stupid acting exercise, I thought I should go along with it. Especially since Sikowitz assigns the plays, and all, so he should know how talented I am."

"Yeah, okay. Whatever you say."

"Shut up. Let's just go."

He laughed and took her hand, and they walked over to his car. Something else struck him, though, and he turned to face her just before he opened the door.

"So…you really think I have _exquisite_ abs?"

He expected her to hit him, but he should have known better. Jade had already proven that she was feeling more playful than usual today.

"I think you know that I like them," she whispered into his ear, smiling deviously. He felt a tingle run down his spine. Suddenly, he couldn't wait to get home.

Andre was right. Friday afternoons were the best.

**Kinda short, but I promise the next one will be longer. I might also add another part to this later, from the scene at the beginning of the video where they're uploading it (the "say you love me," "magic word" exchange. We'll see).**

**Reviews make me happy! (:**


	14. 365 Days

**Hey! So I'm so sorry I haven't written in forever – things have been absolutely crazy since I play a varsity sport and I'm adding physics as a second major, so I haven't really had time to do anything other than run around, go to class, practice, and my job, and so homework. To make up for it, I present you with…a full episode write up! I'm also working on something small outside of this piece, so hopefully it'll be up soon, although I haven't decided whether to include it here or make it a separate one-shot.**

**I just saw "Jade Gets Crushed" online and I **_**had**_** to write something about it. I actually think there's a lot of Bade material in it, although I thought the Jandre plot was cute as well (I wish the issue hadn't been completely resolved, though; the ending was kinda rushed). Especially the part where she and Andre are just hanging out—it struck me that she's probably like that around Beck when they're together, relaxed and snarky and funny. Plus I loved the beginning part, where Beck's all "Jade scares you? That's weird." So I had to do something for it. Here's what I came up with. Enjoy!**

…

They were at lunch when Tori brought it up.

"Hey, Andre needs someone to record a song for his songwriting class. I was gonna do it, but I have this stupid tech theatre exam thing to do."

They looked around at each other. Cat wasn't with them; she had lasted about a minute at the table before springing up to go "try eating and bouncing!" Her high-pitched laughter emanated from somewhere in the distance.

Beck looked at his girlfriend, but the expression on her face was unreadable. He squeezed her hand. She didn't always showcase her singing talent, but he knew that she loved to sing, and that she was a talented singer and lyricist. Still, Jade didn't exactly go out of her way to help other people, and if this recording involved staying after school, she probably wouldn't be willing to sacrifice her time. So he was surprised when she looked up from her vegetarian burrito, a small smile on her face. "I'll do it," she said nonchalantly.

There was silence.

"You-you want to record my song?" Andre asked dubiously. Beck though he detected a hint of uncertainty in his voice. Weird. Beck knew (they all knew, really) that Jade was one of the best vocalists in their grade, even if she didn't actively show it off all of the time, so he didn't know why Andre would be hesitant to use her.

She shrugged. "Sure, whatever. I haven't done anything musical in a while." Although she didn't outright say it, Beck knew that Jade deigning Andre talented enough to have use of her vocals was actually a pretty big compliment.

Apparently, Andre didn't realize that last part. "Oh—okay," he stammered, looking surprised. "Meet you after school in the studio?" Next to him, Tori shifted uncomfortably.

Evidently, Jade noticed. "What, scared that I'll take your place? Don't worry, Vega, I'm sure you'll always be Andre's first choice. I'm just doing him a favor." She tossed her head impatiently, and stood up to leave. Recognizing her irritation, Beck hopped to his feet as well. Truthfully, she had a right to be annoyed; she _was_ doing Andre a favor, and he wasn't exactly grateful. Although it obviously wasn't a comment on her talent, Beck knew Jade would take Andre's hesitance as a sign that he didn't think she was good enough. Which wouldn't go over well.

As soon as they were out of earshot, he took her wrist. "Hey, where're you going?" he asked lightly.

"Somewhere else."

They continued on in silence for a few minutes before he spoke again. "So, that was nice of you to help Andre."

"Yeah, whatever." Beck sensed her irritation, but she didn't seem too annoyed, so he let it go. She turned to face him, a small smile on her face, and he couldn't help but think that Andre didn't know how lucky he was to have Jade record his song.

…

Beck walked idly towards the recording studio as the last bell sounded, surrounded by swarms of students frantically escaping home. As he entered, he heard the soft, melodic notes of the piano, but no female voice accompanied it. "Hey man," he said, dropping his bag next to the laptop. He looked around, but Jade was conspicuously absent. Which was weird, since she had the last period free every Wednesday, and hated fighting through mobs of students. "Jade's not here yet?" he asked casually, picking up a pool ball to play with.

Andre pounded out a few more notes on the piano. "Um, about Jade," he said, and then stopped.

"Yeah?" Beck responded offhandedly, still fiddling with the blue ball.

"Look, don't take this the wrong way, but I don't think she's the right girl to record my song."

Huh. Weird. They all knew that Jade had a fantastic voice. "Why not?" he asked, still not fully paying attention. He expected it to be some stupid little reason, like the fact that Andre had written the song for Tori or something. What he did not expect, however, was Andre's uncomfortable answer.

"I dunno, I just…well…" Andre's fingers danced lightly on the keyboard before he continued. "She scares me."

Beck looked up, unsure whether to laugh or be offended. "Jade scares you?" he asked, incredulous. Sure, his girlfriend was strong-willed and had a few weird interests, but he liked that she was brutally honest. Plus, Jade was a lot of bark and not a lot of bite. He just assumed that everyone knew that.

"She scares everybody." Beck supposed he shouldn't have been surprised, but he was still slightly offended that Andre would actually be "too scared" of his girlfriend to record a song with her, especially since she was doing him a huge favor. He opened his mouth to respond irately when the door burst open.

"_I am going to kill him_!"

Beck recognized his girlfriend's screech before he even turned around. She was standing in the door, blue eyes ablaze, brandishing scissors in her outstretched hand. Behind him, Beck heard Andre groan. Still, it wasn't like Jade would actually hurt anyone. She probably just needed to calm down a bit. "What happened?" he asked, his voice soothing.

Her voice remained as shrill as ever as she responded. "Sinjin sat on my new scissors!" Her eyebrows knitted indignantly, and Beck saw that the scissor blades were bent. A part of him distantly registered that Sinjin must be in some sort of intense pain right now.

"Okay, okay, calm down," he said soothingly.

"I'm not gonna calm down! They're bent! They've lost their 'scis.'" Before Beck could do anything, she whipped the scissors across the room, where they embedded themselves into the wall, quivering dangerously.

Shit. Maybe Andre wasn't so wrong to be intimidated by her. He was really running late, and he knew his girlfriend wouldn't be calming down for a while. He'd only come looking for her to tell her about something, but it could wait until she was in a better mood. "You kids have fun," he said quickly. He leaned over to kiss her on the cheek; Jade turned towards him at the last minute, and he awkwardly caught her nose instead. Still, her scowl softened slightly.

"Bye," she said, sounding somewhat placated.

As he hurried away, he found himself wondering how on Earth Sinjin had sat on Jade's scissors anyway. Then he decided he didn't want to know.

…

Jade breathed angrily, her pulse still racing, as she watched Beck leave the room. Then she turned to Andre.

"Alright. What do you have? It better be good," she added. "I've got better things to be doing." He mumbled something incomprehensible, tapping his shoe on the ground. "If you're going to talk to me, say it so I can hear it!" she barked, and he looked up immediately.

"I just said, I don't really have any lyrics yet!" He backed up defensively, and Jade rolled her eyes.

"Fine. Lucky for you my songwriting's almost as good as my singing."

"Uh…okay. Sure," Andre said, raising an eyebrow.

"Hey," Jade snapped, offended. "You've never even heard anything I've written. So shut up and start playing."

He did. As the melody filled the room, Jade felt her anger ebbing away. Music had a strange way of calming her, although Beck was probably the only one who knew it at this point. She'd always known that Andre was good, but this was really good—soft, melodious, and soothing in the way that didn't make her want to scream and rip her ears off. It wasn't exactly her genre, but that didn't mean she couldn't appreciate musical skill when she heard it. He finished the song and looked up, seemingly relieved when she nodded.

"Okay. That was…not bad," she said, somewhat begrudgingly. "Maybe I'm not wasting my time after all."

"Oh," Andre said awkwardly. "Great."

They stared at each other for another minute until Jade broke the silence.

"So…should we get going?"

…

Several hours later, they had made slow progress. After two hours of work, they'd each taken a three-hour break to eat and do other homework before coming back to the studio. Fortunately, it was open all hours, although Jade would have preferred to be elsewhere. Namely, in bed.

"Alright, Harris, let's get a move on." Andre had written most of the first and second verses himself, and Jade had cautiously recorded them, although she knew they'd probably have to re-record the entire song when it was finished. She'd been mildly offended at his surprise when she opened her mouth (he'd heard her sing before; he knew she was good), but she found herself strangely relaxed. At his response—"wow, that was actually pretty good!"—she'd managed only mild snark instead of her usual acerbic comeback. Beck would have been proud of her.

"Ugh." Andre pressed his hands against the keyboard in frustration. "This is ridiculous. Why can't I write one stupid chorus?"

Despite herself, Jade felt a twinge of sympathy. She knew what it was like to feel frustrated and stuck—hell, she usually felt this frustrated just making her way through the idiots that surrounded her everyday. Plus, her boyfriend was an actor, and God knew he had his irritable, "artist's block" moments. She decided to try something that she'd used on Beck before—a little trick that always made her smile (which, of course, wasn't an easy thing to do).

"Alright." She sat up, wrapping her cool hand around his wrist. "You ever try this when you were a kid?"

Andre immediately backed up like she had the plague. "Whoa, whoa, what're you doing?"

Shit, he was jumpy, but it wasn't like she wasn't going to bite him or anything. Jade rolled her eyes. "Just gimme your hand! Don't be a baby."

"Alright," he said begrudgingly. "I'm trusting you."

She nearly snickered, but settled for a sardonic smile instead. "Yeah, yeah, big mistake."

She took his hand, surprised by how hot his skin was against hers. "Make a fist," she instructed. He complied, and she began massaging his fingers lightly.

Andre still looked suspicious. "What are you doing?"

God, he was annoying. "Talk less," she said bracingly, "and open your hand." She slapped his open palm, ordered him to close his hand, and continued massaging his fingers.

"You sure there's a point to this?"

Jade grinned. Beck had said the exact same thing to her when she'd showed him the trick too. "Yep," she said, "and here it comes. Open." He complied, and she pressed her finger into the center of his palm, before slowly removing her hand from his wrist.

Andre's face suddenly turned o one of shock and delight. "Oooh! It's all tingly!"

Despite herself, Jade giggled. "See?"

"Do it again!"

"No!" She leaned back, still grinning lazily. "You have to finish writing your song, the chorus."

Andre shook his head. "It's after midnight. Let's just bail."

"Uh-uh!" Jade responded indignantly. She hadn't sat here for hours, sacrificing her entire evening, so that Andre could whine about writer's block and then bail without finishing. "You got a break, now finish writing the chorus!"

"I've been trying to finish it for three hours!"

Thank God that Beck never whined like this. She would have stabbed him years ago (or, at the very least, dumped his whiny ass) if he complained every time the going got a little tough. "Wow. Great. Now shut up and sing something."

He shrugged, wheeling back over to the keyboard. She picked up her pen and paper. She'd had a few ideas before, and maybe she could help.

Andre groaned as he pounded out the first few notes. Suddenly, Jade thought of a line. "Keep going," she ordered. As Andre began singing some nonsense lyrics (even for him, they were bad, although she smiled at "my favorite letter's J"), she felt the inspiration, and started to write. The lines weren't perfect, but they were a start. As Andre finished, she scribbled down the last few lines she could think of—what rhymed with "way?"—and then looked up at his expectant face.

"Alright. Let me try something." She put the headphones over her ears. "Record me."

…

Andre shrugged as Jade put the giant white headphones on. So far, Jade hadn't contributed much to the lyrics, although he supposed she was already helping him enough just by recording his song. Still, he knew she was a good writer, so he was curious. Andre was slightly surprised by how calm she was, considering that he'd essentially kept her after school for hours. That stint she'd pulled with his hand was actually kind of cool. Vaguely, he wondered if her calm, laughing sarcasm was how she normally acted around Beck. It certainly would explain a lot about the dynamics of their relationship.

Then she started to sing, and Andre's mind suddenly went blank.

Her eyes were closed, an expression of pure concentration on her face as she sang. Her words were simple and pure, but somehow Jade made them soft, melodic, and vulnerable, so unlike her usual demeanor. Although he loved Tori's singing, Jade's voice had an undeniable depth and richness that Tori's happy, sparkly voice lacked. It was, for lack of a better word, _beautiful_.

Andre didn't fight the creeping sensation of awe that swept over him as she finished the verse. Sure, he'd heard Jade sing before, but she'd always been going for power rather than softness or melody. But hearing her, he realized he'd grossly underestimated her talent. A part of him was really starting to understand what Beck saw in her.

He was so enthralled by her apparent change in demeanor that he barely noticed when she removed the white headphones, instead continuing on with the song.

"What'd you think?" she asked, completely serious. Andre still couldn't think of a response. His mind was still too fuzzy from trying to piece together this Jade with the abrasive, intimidating girl that he normally knew. "You like that?" she prompted. The smile on her face was almost…nervous?

Jade West was nervous. Jade West wanted his approval on _her lyrics_. It was official. The world was collapsing.

Andre nodded mutely, managing a faint "mm-hmm." Jade nodded awkwardly, and he swallowed. He didn't like this feeling that was creeping over him.

She leaned back, satisfied, and Andre forced himself back to reality. "So, uh, could you just…record the chorus as a continuation of the first verse? I can edit in that version for the second chorus. You know. On the…computer…and stuff." He was babbling. Why was he babbling? He only ever acted like this around girls whom he—

No. He could _not_ be developing a crush on Jade. It was impossible. He wouldn't let himself! He wouldn't! He—

"Andre?" she asked, bringing him back to Earth. She tapped her pencil impatiently.

"Uh…yeah. One sec."

Somehow he managed to turn on the recording equipment and force his hands to the keyboard. But he couldn't stop ogling slightly as she sang out first his verse, then her chorus. How had he never noticed her ability before?

"Uh, okay, I think we're good!" he said quickly, the instant that the music ended. Jade looked slightly surprised, but merely raised her eyebrows in response. "Okay. I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Uh, yeah. I'll do the rest, um, electronically."

"Okay." She stood with a flourish—as nice as she'd been, she was still Jade West—and swept to the door, her black cardigan fluttering behind her. "Get some sleep!" she called as she left. At his surprised look, she smirked slightly. "I'm more of a night person," she said, as if she'd read his confusion. With that, she was gone, and Andre was left staring at the doorway.

This was bad. This was really, really bad.

…

"So, how did things go last night?" Beck asked the next morning as he held open the door to his car. He wasn't sure what to expect—after all, Jade hadn't been in the best mood when he'd left them. But she'd seemed to be in a decent mood when she'd stopped by his RV during the hour that she had taken off to eat dinner, so hopefully it hadn't been that bad. Plus, he hadn't received any distressed texts from either Andre or Jade.

Still, he was surprised at the way her eyes lit up. "It was good!" she said, before catching herself and reverting back to form. "I mean, Andre put the song together on the computer, so I haven't heard it yet. But _I_ obviously sounded good, so why wouldn't it be?"

"That's my girl," Beck said with a laugh, kissing the side of her head. "So what did you do?"

"Oh, the usual," she said flippantly. "Andre whined for like a million hours about not being able to write lyrics, so I showed him that hand-trick thing that you liked that one time."

"Hand-trick thing?" Beck echoed, raising an eyebrow. He knew she probably wasn't talking about the "hand-trick thing" that he was thinking about, but still. She snorted at his expression.

"Not _that_ hand-trick thing, you pervert." She opened her hand. "The one that I showed you that one time when you were trying to write your short film, remember?"

"Oh, yeah. That. So I take it you were in a good mood?"

She shrugged, and he grinned, knowing that she'd refuse to admit to enjoying herself. He also wondered how Andre had reacted—he couldn't exactly be "scared" of Jade while she made his hand tingle, right?

"Now that I think about it, Andre acted pretty weird," she said casually.

"How so?"

"For like, the first five hours he acted like I was going to bite him. Not that I don't enjoy being feared, but seriously, what was up with that?" She took a breath, but then barreled on, sparing Beck from having to say anything. "And then after I recorded the chorus, he got all weird, like he was trying not to look at me or something. He kept swallowing his words and stuff." She made a face. "Andre's such an idiot sometimes."

"So you had fun."

She laughed—God, she really was in a good mood—and swatted at his shoulder lightly. "The song was good, at least."

Gradually, the conversation changed as they made their way to school. They had just entered the building when Jade stopped. "Oh! I forgot—look at this weird photo I got of my neighbor's dog eating a bird." She grinned, holding up the phone as he rolled his eyes, and leaned over the tiny screen. "See, look, you can even see the feathers sticking out of his mouth there!" He bit back a laugh, opening his mouth to respond when Jade cut him off. "Hey!" she called out. Beck looked up, spotting Tori and Andre by Andre's locker.

"Hey," responded Andre, less enthusiastically. He cleared his throat, but didn't say anything else.

"So…can I hear the song?" Beck noticed the way that his girlfriend perked up after she asked the question, and smiled. Their recording session must have gone well if not even Jade could hide her excitement about the song.

"Yeah, well, I—"

Just then, they were interrupted by maniacal laughter, accompanied by a springing sound as Cat bounced past them. They all stared for a moment, then—

"So, the song?" Jade repeated. Andre didn't answer.

"Jade wants to hear _the song that you recorded together_," said Tori, with deliberate cheerfulness. What the hell was going on?

"Oh—yeah! Yeah. I'll email it to you!" Andre sounded proud. "Via the internet."

Although Jade's expression appeared to remain the same, Beck was sure he saw her face fall imperceptibly. Apparently, she wasn't sure how to respond to his comment. "_Via_?" she asked flatly.

Beck couldn't help but be slightly offended on her part. Didn't Jade deserve to listen to the song that she had recorded in person? "Don't you think that you guys should listen to it together?" he pointed out, running his hand through his slightly mussed hair.

"No, why together? She can listen to it by herself—_I didn't do anything_!" Andre held his hands up in mock-surrender, his eyes widening as if frightened.

Beck felt Jade tense up slightly. She was obviously offended, and somewhat weirded out by Andre's bizarre behavior. But being Jade, she wasn't about to show that his words had affected her, so she simply raised her eyebrows. "_Okay_," she said curtly. "Email it to me." Her smile gone, she simply walked on past Andre and Tori. Beck followed obediently.

"_Via _the internet?" he asked.

She turned to face him. "That was weird, right?"

"Definitely."

"Whatever."

They kept walking, but Beck knew that Jade was annoyed. He took her shoulder, and she turned to face him. "What?"

"You okay?" he asked.

She shrugged. "I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be? If my song isn't good enough for Andre, then he's an idiot anyway."

"Come on, Jade. You know he doesn't think that." Beck ran his hand soothingly down her arm. "He's probably just weird from lack of sleep."

Her eyes narrowed. "Yeah, and you know who else didn't get a lot of sleep? Me, because I was up _with_ him, recording his stupid song that he can't even bother playing in front of me!" She coughed. "How can he make me stay up for hours and hours and hours and then not even have the balls to let me hear it? What does he think I'm gonna do, screw it up just by listening? I'm not that stupid!" Her voice had risen by the end, and she breathed angrily for a minute.

Beck felt his stomach drop slightly. He'd known from the instant that the words had left Andre's mouth that Jade would be disappointed. Still, he couldn't believe that Andre had actually refused to listen to it with her altogether. What was his deal? He couldn't still be "afraid" of her—Jade said they'd had a perfectly good time together. So he took her hand, stroking her palm slightly as he pulled her in closer.

"Come on, babe, I'm sure he doesn't think that. You're amazing," Beck whispered. He thought he saw the tiniest smile flicker across her face as she leaned in closer.

"Sap."

With that, she closed the distance between them, and Beck couldn't help thinking that this might be a good day after all.

The rest of the day went relatively uneventfully. After the last bell rang, Beck was waiting at Jade's locker when he saw Andre, standing idly. "Hey man, what was that earlier?" He kept his tone conversational, but he couldn't stop the annoyance that snuck into his normally-relaxed voice.

Immediately, Andre looked at the floor. "What was what? I didn't do anything!"

"Are you so 'scared' of Jade that you won't even show her the song that the two of you made together? Come on, man. What the hell?"

"No!" said Andre, more vehemently than Beck had expected. He paused, and cleared his throat. "I was just…embarrassed! Yeah, embarrassed, because I forgot to bring the song with me!"

"You forgot."

"Yeah, I forgot!"

"Then why didn't you just say that to Jade earlier?" Beck asked, still bemused.

"Oh, I don't know…didn't I tell her that?" Andre ran a hand through his dreadlocks anxiously. "Look, I gotta—I gotta run." Before Beck could respond, Andre had turned on his heel and was already moving away from Beck. Beck merely shrugged. His friends were weird sometimes.

"Okay, I'm done, let's go!"

He looked up to see Jade striding towards him. She stopped and leaned against the locker, jiggling her foot impatiently.

"Hey," he greeted. "So Andre said he emailed you the song because—"

"I don't care." She cut him off. "Let's just go." But as soon as they were out of the school, Beck saw her pull out her Pearphone and open up her email screen. Suddenly, the sound of piano chords blared from her phone, and they both stopped to listen.

As soon as Beck heard Jade's voice join the song, he felt the hair on his arm stand on end—he had chills. Her voice was beautiful and pure, and showed off her expert vocal control. Beck had heard Jade sing a lot, but he rarely heard her sound so vulnerable. Hopefully Andre had realized how stupid he'd been to think that Jade couldn't sing his song properly.

The tune slowly faded out. "What did you think?" Beck noticed that although she pretended to be indifferent, she couldn't stop the note of pride that crept into her voice.

"I thought it was really good."

"Don't just say what you think I want to hear."

"I'm not," he said with a small laugh. "You sounded great."

"It's a good song," she conceded.

He pecked her on the cheek, lacing her fingers through his, and together they made their way home.

…

"Remind me again why we're going to this thing instead of hanging out with just the two two of us?" Jade asked for the millionth time. It was Friday night, and they were lounging around Beck's RV.

"I told you, Andre's performing some song he wrote and he specifically asked if we could be there."

"I don't feel like going. We were supposed to go watch the stars in the back of your truck."

He rolled his eyes. "This is L.A. You can hardly see the stars. You just wanted to get coffee and mess around in the back of the truck."

"Yeah, well, so what if I do?"

He bit back the response that came to his mind, because she had a point. He really didn't mind the thought of driving out into an isolated field to "stargaze." Still, he'd promised Andre that they'd go, and the showcases were always fun. "Tell you what," he said finally. "Tonight we'll go to the showcase and hang out with everyone, and tomorrow night we'll do something else?"

She pouted. "Just us?"

He nodded. "Just us."

"Fine. At least there'll be good food."

"And Andre's music."

"Yeah, I guess. To be fair, he'll probably be pretty good, although it's always annoying to see Vega showboating up there with him."

Thirty minutes later, they were pulling up to Hollywood Arts when suddenly, Beck had an idea. The stage area was still pretty empty, so he drove straight through the parking lot and into the viewing area, parking against the edge. Jade looked at him like he'd gone crazy. "Beck, what the hell are you doing?"

"I just figured that we could at least hang out in the back of the truck," he said nonchalantly.

"Not a bad idea," came Jade's grudging reply.

Beck laid out the blanket and they sat in chairs as the stadium slowly filled up. Suddenly Jade turned to him. "This chair sucks. It hurts my back. Sit with me down there instead." It wasn't a question. So Beck scooted off of his chair and onto the edge of his truck, leaning against her slightly as the emcee announced Andre's name.

Andre stepped up for the mike. "This is a song that I wrote—"

"For his dog!" shouted Tori, barging in. Andre looked startled (well, really, they all did, since writing a song for a dog was a little weird), but simply nodded.

"I love my dog."

The song started, and Beck had to admit that it was catchy. Plus, Andre and Tori's voices blended perfectly, and he couldn't suppress a grin as he watched the two of them perform together. Secretly, he'd always wondered if they had a thing for each other, although he knew they'd both deny it vehemently. But the two of them had a certain rhythm between themselves that was obcious when they were performing.

Oddly enough, it almost seemed like Andre was singing to them—he seemed to be staring right at their truck throughout the entire song. Weird. His smile became slightly fixed as the song went on, but he shrugged off the weirdness; it was still a good song. He could tell that Jade was enjoying the song too—although she didn't smile, she still danced along to the beat, and nodded approvingly. When they got to the chorus, she actually started clapping along to the beat, and he joined her enthusiastically.

Looking at his girlfriend's face, he couldn't help but feel a rush of affection for her as he watched her dance along to the music. He wrapped his arm around her, and she leaned into him. He was glad they'd sat in the truck.

The song ended, and Jade briefly scooted out of his embrace, smiling as she clapped. He pulled her back in, wrapping both of his arms around her shoulders, and she snuggled into his side for a few minutes before Cat appeared in front of them, bouncing and giggling uncontrollably.

"Come on, guys! We have to go congratulate them!" she squealed and hopped away.

Beck looked at Jade, who shrugged. "After you."

They found Andre and Tori behind the stage. Cat bounded into Andre's arms, and Beck gave Tori a short hug while Jade went to hug Andre. He noticed, however, that when Jade pulled away, she made eye contact with Andre for a more than a few seconds. As Andre stared at her, somewhat intensely, her smile quickly melted into a look of confusion that was probably mirrored on Beck's own face. What was their deal? When Rex announced that there were spaghetti tacos, he couldn't help but feel a tiny bit relieved that Jade was the first one to jump up, running over towards the spaghetti taco truck. He followed her, leaving Tori and Andre behind, and took her hand.

"I thought you hated spaghetti tacos?" he whispered into her ear.

She scoffed. "Yeah, yeah. Did you see how weird that was? I don't know what's gotten into Andre, but I don't really care."

He laughed, feeling slightly more upbeat, and they went on to continue their night.

…

**Wow, that actually turned out to be the longest chapter I've written so far – nearly twenty pages (double spaced) in Microsoft Word. Not too shabby, if I do say so for myself. For some reason, I wondered why Beck had that weird smile on his face while he was listening to the music, and I thought it would be funny if he was thinking about how cute Andre and Tori were while Andre was clearly singing to Jade. Judging by his behavior, I also didn't think he picked up on the fact that Andre was singing to Jade because he has a crush on her, although he had to notice somehow.**

**Anyway, I'm so sorry for the long hiatus! I hope this long chapter makes up for it. Remember—you can still make requests and I'll try to get to them, so definitely let me know what you think. I think next will be "Beck's Big Break," although I'm still debating whether or not I should post my other piece separately or as a part of this one.**

**Happy (early) Halloween!**


	15. Those Things Upset Some Girls

**Hello! I'm so sorry I've been AWOL for so long; my classes this term (and my sports schedule) really bit me in the ass. However, now I'm home on break, so I can finish not one but several of the pieces I've been working on! Score. **

**I wanted to flash back to season 1 a bit, and I've been hoping to do the episode Cat's New Boyfriend ever since I got a request way back in July or August. I've always wondered how Beck and Jade went from walking away from Tori, Cat and Danny to making out in the span of about twenty seconds, especially since Beck didn't seem too happy with Jade when she left. So I thought about that for a bit, and then I realized that the rest of the episode is pretty much gold in terms of possible Bade ideas, so this is what I came up with. Hope you like it. More to come super soon!**

**PS – I've been bad about putting a disclaimer on each chapter – I didn't think it was necessary as long as I had one in the first chapter – but I figure I'll say it again: I don't own any of this.**

****Edited as per a few reader suggestions.**

…

"Pass me the coffee?"

Jade was asking him for coffee instead of demanding it. That was strange. The morning in itself had been strangely peaceful, and Beck couldn't help but suspect that Jade was saving her usual acid remarks for a certain brunette once they got to their school. Sure enough, as soon as they got to Jade's locker, she spotted Tori talking to a boy and snorted.

"What's _Vega_ doing talking to a hot guy like _that_?"

"Be nice," Beck said, taking her hand.

"Yeah, yeah." She pulled him down the hallway until they were right next to Tori and the boy, who seemed to be in the middle of a rather awkward conversation. Beck shuffled and looked at his shoes, waiting for Tori to bring them into the conversation and introduce them to her new friend.

Jade, however, had no such qualms. "So who's that?"

"Um, this is Danny," answered Tori, clearly trying to make the situation seem as normal as possible. Next to her, the boy gave a short "hey," which Beck returned.

"So why are you talking to Tori?" continued Jade, crossing her arms expectantly. Beck rolled his eyes, but he expected this behavior by now, so he simply waited and let the conversation unfold. The other boy, Danny, looked surprised at Jade's remark, but Tori didn't bat an eyelash.

"He goes to my old school," said Tori. "He was…my boyfriend."

"Girlfriend," said Danny, nodding and pointing.

"So why'd you dump her?" asked Jade bluntly, sounding cheerful.

Despite himself, Beck cringed. Certainly not one of Jade's finer moments. "Jade—" he started, but she cut him off.

"Can I guess? Cuz I got a _lot _of guesses."

At that moment, Beck decided it would probably be better to let the conversation continue, since Jade most likely wouldn't take well to being interrupted. He prayed that she would go easy on Tori.

"Um, actually, Tori broke up with me," said Danny.

"Oh." Jade looked surprised, but still recovered her smirk a second later. "And how did you celebrate?"

There was a pause. "Do you ever take a day off?" asked Tori. Jade merely smiled, and Beck decided it was time to break in and diffuse the tension.

"So…what are you doing here?" he asked Danny. Jade's expression remained neutral, but he could sense how much she was enjoying the awkwardness.

"I've kind of been dating this girl that goes here—" Danny started, but was interrupted by a shriek as a small, red-headed girl sprinted down the stairs into Danny's waiting arms. Daniel picked up Cat and spun her around, giving her a kiss. "Daniel!" Cat squealed happily.

No. No way. _Cat_ couldn't be…

Beck was unable to contain the snicker that escaped his lips. If things had been awkward before, they sure wouldn't be any better now. Beside him, Jade grinned widely, looking as if Christmas had come early.

"Daniel, these are my friends, Beck, Jade, and that's Tori!" said Cat, unaware of Beck and Jade's amusement (and Tori's apparent horror).

"Uh, we've met," mumbled Tori.

Cat perked up. "Really? You know Daniel?"

"Oh, she _knows_ Daniel," taunted Jade. Truthfully, though, Beck couldn't find it in himself to be annoyed at her; in fact, he couldn't believe that Jade had held back for this long. There was an awkward pause. Then—

"Why is everybody acting all weird?" Cat asked innocently.

"I'll tell her!" Jade volunteered, raising a hand..

"No you won't," said Beck quickly.

Tori awkwardly explained that she and Danny had gone to school together. "Oh, so you were friends?" said Cat, smiling.

"Yeah," interjected Jade, "they were _good_ friends." Cat might not have been then brightest person on the planet, but even she picked up on the glee in Jade's gloating voice.

"I'm confused."

Another pause. Finally, Tori said the thing that had been hanging over their heads. "Danny and I used to date." Cat gasped, looking horrified, and Jade's smirk only grew wider. Beck decided he'd better jump in before the bad situation got worse. He touched her shoulder, and she turned towards him expectantly, raising her eyebrows.

"Hey, why don't we walk over to _some other location_?"

Before she could answer, however, Cat continued the conversation. As Tori and Daniel awkwardly filled in Cat on the situation, Jade remained mercifully silent. "Well, okay then! So everything's good!" giggled Cat, seemingly oblivious to Tori's apparent discomfort.

Beck didn't miss the brief look of disappointment that crossed Jade's face before she composed herself. "I'm bored now," she snapped, turning and striding away purposefully.

Beck felt his (somewhat forced) smile slide off of his face. "I apologize for…her," he responded automatically, before turning to follow her. It wasn't that he usually minded Jade's bluntness; in fact, her honesty was one of the reasons he liked her. Usually, he found her commentary amusing. But this particular comment was _just_ cringeworthy enough that he felt he needed to say something before he left. He started towards where Jade was leaning against her locker, arms crossed. Surprisingly, she smirked as he approached.

"So. You _apologize _for me, huh?" She quirked an eyebrow, her good mood still apparent.

"Well, you were a little rude," he told her.

She stepped towards him, raising an eyebrow. "Do you think that I _bothered_ them?"

"Um…"

Before he could think of a tactful thing to say, she placed her hand on the edge of his chin. "Well then, I guess you're just going to have to _apologize_ for this," she murmured, crushing her lips against his.

The kiss was slow and deep, and his body responded instinctively, even before he could process what was going on. She rose up on her toes just as he leaned down to meet her; for a moment they just stood there, kissing hungrily. It occurred to Beck that he should probably still be annoyed at her, but his thoughts were too fuzzy for him to remember why.

After a minute, he lazily opened one eye, distantly aware that they were in a public hallway. He didn't mind PDA, but he was always amused by the reactions of some of their classmates when he and Jade made out in the hallways. Most of the students in the hallways kept walking by, but he caught sight of Cat and Daniel making out about ten yards away. Tori was standing in between the two couples, looking miffed. Beck stifled a chortle. Poor Tori.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Jade whisper-snapped, drawing his attention back to her. "Am I not hot enough to make-out with you or something?"

He smiled slightly. Of course Jade would be able to tell that he wasn't fully paying attention to her. "Just admiring the irony," he said. He saw her eyes slide sideways, felt the smirk form against her lips.

"I'm sure Vega must _love_ this right now. Her ex-boyfriend and the hottest guy in the school, both hardcore making out with other girls right next to her."

"You think I'm the hottest guy in school?" teased Beck.

"You're only moderately attractive. I was just being nice."

He laughed a bit. "I like it when you're nice."

"Whatever."

They did not see Daniel again until a day later, when he showed up at their lunch table. Jade, who had already been giving Tori a hard time that day (something about Tori spilling water on Jade's new boots), immediately perked up.

"Well, this is so nice! Daniel gets to eat lunch with his _new_ girlfriend"—she gestured towards Cat—"and his _used_ girlfriend!" she finished, smiling at Tori.

"You know, you can try to make this awkward," said Tori, "but it's not going to work, because everyone else at this table is mature!" Beck shot Jade a look, and she shrugged innocently. With a slight eyeroll, he scooted closer to her, wrapping his arm around her shoulder. Maybe if he distracted her enough, she would be less intent on ruining their lunch.

"Hey, Cat, did you invite Daniel to the Kick Back?" Jade's voice sounded as normal as possible, but Beck knew that she must have some ulterior motive. As he and Cat explained what the kickback was, Jade smiled sunnily, relaxing her grip on Beck's hand.

"Tori, will _you_ be at the Kick Back?"

Tori's smile was equally forced. "Yes Jade, _I will_."

The situation only deteriorated from there. As Cat fed Daniel brownies ("But you told me you didn't like brownies!" protested Tori), Beck and Jade watched in amused silence until Tori finally stormed off from the table. Jade turned to Beck, still smiling.

"Well, if we're going to be stuck with _them_"—she jabbed her finger at Cat and Daniel—"then we've basically got the table to ourselves anyway. This day cannot get any better."

"Jade, come on. Can't you be nice for a little while?" Even as the words left his mouth, he knew they weren't completely sincere, since he couldn't deny that the situation itself was entertaining. He usually found her cynicism and sarcasm amusing. Still, he felt like he should at least try to be a good friend to Tori.

"What do you mean?"

Beck knew that Jade knew perfectly well what he was talking about, so he rephrased the question. "How would you feel if you were in Tori's situation?"

Wrong question. Her eyebrows shot upwards, narrowing inwards in anger. "What do you mean? You mean if we broke up and you started dating some other girl? That's completely different."

"How so?" He was baiting her a bit, but he couldn't resist.

"First of all, we're not going to break up. Second of all, if we did, I know you wouldn't _dare_ bring another girl to _my_ lunch table. So that's not a relevant question. Unless you're saying you want to break up with me," she finished, glaring at him.

He smiled. "Easy," Beck said. "I'm just trying to say that Tori's our friend. Maybe you should go a little easy on her. You know this has got to be difficult for her."

"Tori's not my friend."

"_Jade_."

She gave a theatrical sigh. "_Fine_. But if I know Tori, she'll find a way to make this worse all by herself, and when that happens, there's no way I won't be right there to laugh at her."

"That's all I'm asking," he said calmly, looping his arm back over her shoulders just as the bell rang. He knew that Jade would never completely remove herself from the situation. Still, when Jade refrained from saying anything rude to Tori during their next class, he couldn't help but smile.

…

It was the evening of the Kick Back, and although Jade wouldn't admit it, she'd been looking forward to it for a while. The Kick Back had enough going on that everyone usually did their own thing, so Jade knew she'd have time to hang out with Beck without the others to interrupt them. To top it off, she knew that Cat and Daniel would be there, therefore making Tori miserable and more likely to screw up than usual. Plus, she was wearing her new shirt. It was a win-win situation.

"Jade, let's go!" called Beck up the stairs. Her mother wasn't home, so it was just the two of them. Beck, however, had been banished to the downstairs while Jade finished putting on her make-up.

"God, I'm coming! Just give me a minute!" she yelled, before appearing at the top of the stairs. Her time had been well worth it, though, because he grinned appreciatively when he saw her. "You like the new shirt?" she asked loftily.

He nodded. "Looks good."

"Then let's go."

When they arrived at the Kick Back, it was already in full swing. Beck immediately made a beeline for the cheese fountain ("I am _not_ eating that!" said Jade), and they danced for a bit before his phone beeped.

"Hey, Andre wants me to go check something out over by the stage. Want to come with?"

Just then, she spotted Tori talking to Sikowitz, just a few feet from where Cat and Daniel were dancing. "I have to go to the bathroom," Jade told Beck. "I'll meet you there?" He nodded, and she went over to see Tori. As she walked, Cat spun around in Daniel's arms, giggling, and Tori looked crestfallen.

"Daniel ever spin you like that?" Jade asked conversationally, coming up behind Tori.

"You wanna get slapped with a sausage?" Tori snapped in response.

Jade stopped to consider it. Actually, raw meat slapping against her face could feel kind of cool, especially if it was the stinging kind of pain that Jade usually liked. Plus, agreeing to Tori's threat would make Tori look stupid. "Sure," said Jade, leaning over as if waiting for it.

Tori looked stunned. "No!" she said, taken aback. Just then, Jade spotted Beck over to her left, talking with Andre and a few giggling girls. Rolling her eyes, she headed their way. Stupid girls. She hadn't even been gone a few minutes. As she got closer, however, she realized that they were all stroking Andre's foot, rather than flirting with Beck.

Just then, Beck looked up at her. "Jade! Jade, you gotta feel Andre's foot."

"Why would I want to…" she trailed off, and then stopped. If Beck thought it felt cool, he was probably right. Beck was usually good at guessing what she'd like. "Alright," she shrugged, squatting down. Fortunately, the other two girls left as she reached out to touch Andre's foot.

It felt…soft. Almost velvety. Eagerly, she put her entire hand on his foot. "Dang, dude, that's some soft footage!" she exclaimed. Andre looked proud.

"I know."

"I mean, really, let's be serious here. That's a nice foot." She caught Beck's eye suggestively, and he smirked.

"Yeah, I know. Robbie and Trina have these weird fish that made them super soft," said Andre, unaware of the glance between the two. After another few seconds, Jade held out her hand to Beck.

"Buy me a soda."

"Yes, ma'am," he said, standing. Once they were out of Andre's earshit, he turned to face her. "Really, Jade? A foot fetish?"

"I didn't say anything like that!" she protested. "But you know, when our legs are wrapped together, I'd rather feel nice, soft feet instead of your nasty calluses."

"That can be arranged," he whispered, getting closer. She laughed, leaning in, when she saw something over Beck's shoulder. She gasped, and he looked up. "What?" he said. She just smirked, unable to say anything else, at the sight behind them.

Cat and Daniel were leaning against the side of the truck, dripping in cheese and looking angry and appalled. A horrified-looking Tori, meanwhile, bolted into the side door of the school. Beck looked at Jade.

"Did she just—"

"Yep."

"Should we follow her?"

At first, Jade was annoyed. Why would they follow Vega when the action was right in front of them? But then…it might be more fun to try and get Tori to admit that she had sprayed the cheese because she was jealous. "Yeah, let's get her," Jade agreed.

Jade and Beck made their way towards the gym entrance, just in time to catch Tori's brown hair flying around the corner. As they entered the hallway, they saw the door to the Black Box theatre close. Wordlessly, they followed her, Beck holding the door for Jade.

"Hey Tori!" he called. No response. "Yo, Tori!"

"We saw you run in here!" Jade chimed in.

"Hey, what up with all the camping equipment?" asked Beck, pointing at the tent and campfire scene in front of them. Jade rolled her eyes.

"Sinjin and his friends are doing a play about a camping trip gone wrong," she said, remembering how Sinjin had begged her to be in it ("I promise, you'll be the first one eaten!").

"Gone wrong?" asked Beck, raising his eyebrows. She rolled her eyes.

"They end up eating each other, I don't know."

Beck continued to walk through the theatre, calling for Tori. Jade was about to do the same when she heard something, and stopped. It sounded like a squeak—and it was coming from the tent. Seizing a broom, she chucked it at the tent, which shrieked. Jade sauntered forwards.

"Toriiiiii, come out to plaaaaaay!"

The flap unzipped to reveal a disgruntled Tori, still holidng a sausage. "Leave me alone."

"What up with the hot cheese attack on Cat," said Beck gently.

Jade couldn't resist. "And her boyfriend. _Daniel_."

Tori rambled on about not being the jealous type, and while Jade was tempted to interrupt, the girl looked so upset that she held back. Hey, she wasn't completely heartless. As Tori left to "go apologize to them some more," Jade looked at Beck.

"Wanna go feel Andre's foot some more?"

He considered it, then nodded. "Yeah."

…

Later that night, Jade was saying a very nonverbal goodbye to Beck when her phone started chirping the theme song from Sesame Street. She groaned, reaching for it.

"_What_, Cat?"

"Jade, she…" the rest of the sentence was muffled by a sob. Immediately, Jade straightened up, pressing the phone to her ear. Cat, like Jade, hardly ever cried.

"Cat, what's wrong?"

"She…_she kissed Daniel_!" the girl sobbed, and Jade felt her teeth clench.

"Who? Tori?"

"Yes! I just…I thought everything was happy and we were all good but there's still cheese in my hair and I'm already on my way over to your house…"

Cat rambled on, but her sentence was obscured by the wail that had crept into her voice. Jade looked over at Beck, still leaning impatiently against his car. "Cat, can you come over tomorrow?"

"Well…I'm kind of almost there already…"

"Fine. You can come over here, my mom won't be home for an hour." She heard Beck groan and rolled her eyes. Too bad for him. _He_ didn't know how traumatic it was to have Tori Vega kiss your boyfriend.

"Okay," said Cat in a small voice. "I'll see you in a bit."

"What happened to Cat?" asked Beck.

She shrugged. "Vega kissed her boyfriend—_big_ surprise—and I'm sure you can imagine why she thinks _I'll _understand." He nodded, knowing that Tori's first day of school was still a bit of a sensitive topic for Jade. "Besides," continued Jade, "my dad won't be home at all tomorrow night, so we can just go to his house then instead. My mom won't care."

"Fine. We're still on for tomorrow?" They had agreed to go over to the Vegas' house to try Andre's new foot-softening technique. Jade nodded, and with a final kiss, Beck drove away. A few minutes later, Cat pulled up, her cheeks still streaked with mascara. Jade stiffened slightly. She'd never been good with crying people, but she felt genuinely bad for Cat, considering that she'd pretty much been in the exact same situation herself a few months before.

"Hey, Jade," said Cat quietly, sniffling.

"Hey, it's okay. Just come inside, we can talk and, uh, have lemonade or something," said Jade.

As they sat on the couch, Cat recounted what had happened. Jade couldn't help but feel a pang of sympathy. Vega had kissed Beck intentionally to piss Jade off. But from the sound of it, she'd knowingly kissed Daniel during a time when Cat wasn't around, without even thinking that Cat could see them. It was a pretty damn selfish thing to do.

"God, what is it with this girl and other people's boyfriends?" she asked through gritted teeth.

Cat shrugged innocently. "I don't know. I mean, Tori's so nice!" she said. "Why would she spray me with cheese and then kiss Daniel?"

"Cat, she's not that nice!" said Jade forcefully. "God, she kissed Beck on her second day of school!"

"Didn't you pour coffee in her hair?"

"Cat," Jade snapped through gritted teeth. "Not. The Point. The point is that Tori Vega is a boyfriend-stealing little gank, and you should be mad at her."

"I guess. But right now, I just feel sad." She sighed a little bit, and Jade felt her anger ebb a little bit.

"Whatever. Let's just watch a movie or something."

"Ooh, yay! Can we watch Titanic?"

Jade groaned. "Ugh, fine, but if I fall asleep, don't wake me up until it sinks and everyone is dying."

"Deal."

…

Beck picked up Jade around three p.m. the next day.

"So did Andre say how those fish made his feet so smooth?"

Beck shook his head, eyes on the road. "No, only that we'd like it."

Jade perked up. "Maybe it's painful!" Beck didn't bother to respond.

However, when they entered the Vega's kitchen, a strange sight greeted them. Trina, Andre, and Robbie were all sitting on the counter, next to a small aquarium full of fish.

"Welcome," said Trina grandly. "Come to the counter."

Taking Beck's hand, Jade walked over to the kitchen, climbing onto the ledge. The other three watched them eagerly. "Now what?" Jade asked.

"Now, you just put your feet into the aquarium, and the fish eat all of the dead skin! It works like magic!" said Robbie. Jade felt her eyebrows shoot up. Fish eating her feet? Really? She really, _really_ didn't like the thought of putting her feet in fishwater. Apparently, Beck felt the same way.

"Is this safe?" he demanded, his voice disbelieving. The three nodded excitedly.

"Will it hurt?"asked Jade.

"Nope?" said Trina cheerfully.

"Oh." Jade couldn't keep the slight note of disappointment out of her voice. Beck gave her a strange look.

"Come on," egged Trina. "If you want your feet to feel all baby soft…"

"Okay!" They all turned to see Tori storming down the stairs. "I have left her five voicemails and _twelve_ text messages! Why won't Cat talk to me?" Was she serious? Jade couldn't believe Tori would actually bother to ask that, but she was proud of Cat for holding her ground. Secretly, Jade had been worried that Cat would immediately forgive Tori, but apparently Cat was smarter than that.

Everyone else seemed to be thinking the same thing as Jade, because they all chimed in.

"Because you squirted hot cheese in her face!"

"And played smushy face with her boyfriend!"

"Those things upset some girls!" Jade said with a large, fake smile. She couldn't help it—Tori really needed to see that her actions had consequences. Plus, as far as Jade was concerned, Tori hadn't ever really gotten in trouble for kissing Beck in the first place. Good for Cat for holding out on her.

Tori looked disappointed, so Jade ignored her until she went back upstairs. Then it was back to the fish. "Just do it!" cackled Rex, popping up in between Jade and Beck. They locked eyes, and then Beck nodded.

She dipped in one foot, then the other. It felt…strange. The water was cold, and she could feel the fish wriggling against her skin—_ew_. But just as she was about to pull her feet out, the sensation started. It was soft, gentle, _amazing_. Jade couldn't help but moan in relief; next to her, Beck made a noise she'd never heard outside of when they were having…_alone_ time.

"It feels good, right?"

"Yeah," Beck answered, "it's like—it's like—"

"Like a million tiny fish kisses?" interrupted Rex.

Actually, he was kind of right. "Yeah," Jade sighed, just as Beck did the same. God, this felt so good—she hoped her facial expressions weren't too euphoric. She snuck a peek at Beck and stifled a snort. His blissful smile was something that she'd only ever seen him make in bed.

"Isn't it great?" said Trina, clearly unaware of Jade's amusement.

She couldn't even respond coherently. "Yeah," she sighed. Gradually, the fish seemed to lose interest in their feet, until Trina told them that they were probably finished. Still incredibly relaxed, Jade climbed out of the fish tank. She and Beck hung around the Vega's for a little bit longer, until Jade decided it was time to go home.

"Okay, we're going now," she announced. Beside her, Beck looked up in surprise.

"We are?"

"I want to see how smooth your feet are."

Beck looked confused. "But you can just feel them right here."

She leaned over to him. "Listen, loser, I told you my dad isn't home, and I really want to see _how smooth your feet are_." She watched the realization flash across his face as he nodded.

"Ah." With that, they climbed off the couch and lazily made their way towards the door. "See you guys tomorrow!"

…

The next morning, Jade woke up to see Beck looking at her. "What?" she asked irritably.

He shook his head. "It's nothing," he said. "I was just thinking about things."

"_What_?" she demanded.

He shrugged. "Only that you seemed angrier than usual when Tori kissed Daniel. Are you still mad at me for kissing her?"

She fell back into the pillows, laughing sarcastically. "Who said I stopped being mad at you for that, moron?"

"Come on, Jade, you know it didn't mean anything."

"Of course it didn't. Why would it need to mean anything? You have _me_," she snapped. "But it doesn't mean I can't be pissed at her, especially when she went and kissed Cat's new boyfriend! And she didn't even have a purpose. At least when she was all over you, she was trying to humiliate me—not that it worked, obviously—but she didn't even think about Cat's feelings when she was making out with Daniel! She always gets what she wants, and it's time for her to realize that she's really freaking selfish sometimes!"

Jade didn't realize that she was yelling until she stopped to take a breath. Beck blinked, but otherwise looked unfazed. "I really don't think she's that bad." Jade glared at him. "But," he added hastily, "she shouldn't have done either of those things." He traced circles onto her skin soothingly, and she felt herself relax a bit.

Jade let herself relax a bit longer before sitting up. "Come on, we gotta get ready for school."

"Are you sure you're not still mad?" Beck asked, slightly concerned. "Your face is red and your skin's all hot."

"That's ridiculous! I'm not _red_. Besides, you look kinda hot too," said Jade indignantly. But she did feel a little hot. Actually, Beck wasn't looking too great either. Suddenly, she felt her stomach lurch. "Oh god…"

She ran into the bathroom, and emerged a minute later to find Beck staring at her wildly.

"Those fish…what if they…?"

"Oh god. You don't think…" Jade trailed off, looking horrified.

Beck held out his hand. "Let's go. Now."

…

(But it ended up being okay , because Cat punched Tori in the face and then they were all in the hospital.)

**Please leave a review or request! I promise there will be another chapter within the next few days—I'm almost done with another episode.**


	16. Say the Line For Me

**As promised, here's Beck's Big Break! I've been wanting to do this one forever (actually, I started this in early October) because of the one scene where Jade storms off at lunch, so I hope I did the episode justice. And look! Only a week between updates, **_**and**_** it's finals period! Score.**

…

He told her the news about the movie right before lunch. "Hey babe," he said, keeping his tone casual as they made their way to a table at the cafeteria. "Remember that movie I was telling you about that needed a waiter?" She nodded, but otherwise didn't show any reaction, so he continued. "Well, I'm gonna audition for the part this afternoon."

"Cool."

"Yeah, I just thought I'd tell you since I'm going to be tied up all night."

"I mean, it's fine. You're auditioning for a movie. I think I can survive one night on my own."

Beck grinned. Most other girls would have been squealing in excitement, but Jade wasn't most girls. He knew she was excited for him, but she was also a realist. She probably didn't want to waste emotional energy being excited about the actual opportunity until he actually got the part. _If_ he got the part

"I know you can," he laughed. "And I probably won't even get it. There'll be a lot of people trying out and—"

"Well, yeah, but you're good. You've got a shot," she said sincerely, looking him in the eye. Surprised but pleased at her optimism, Beck reached for her hand. As their skin made contact, however, she shrieked and pulled her hand away.

"Ouch! Beck, what the hell was that?"

"What do you mean?"

"Something just…pricked me in the thumb or something! What the hell, Beck? Are you carrying around a thumbtack?"

"No, I'm not!" Gingerly, he held her hand up to examine it. A black barbed stinger, about half a centimeter long, stuck directly out of the pad of her thumb; the skin around it was red and swollen, and Beck winced slightly at the sight. "Jade, you should try to take the stinger out. You're not allergic to bees, are you?"

"No, for God's sake, that thing just freaking hurt! Why'd it sting _me_?"

"Maybe it was attracted to the color in your hair." His lips twitched.

"Yeah, haha. Why didn't you stop it from stinging me?"

"How on Earth was I supposed to do that?"

"I dunno," she snapped. "These stupid bees are everywhere. God, let's just get our food and get a table."

Still, Beck couldn't resist a laugh at the thought of the mighty Jade West, brought down by a honeybee. "Aww, you're not gonna let a little bee sting ruin your day, are you?"

"Shut it."

Jade's bad mood lasted until they sat down. Beck didn't particularly mind, though; her silence would be helpful since he still had to read through the script. While she scowled down at her burrito, he pulled out the pink pages and started reading. After a minute, though, he was distracted by the sound of Andre and Tori's voices. He looked up to see them approaching, and waved them over.

Jade, still sucking on her thumb, frowned. "Ugh, I don't want them sitting here!"

Beck patted her arm lightly. "You know, it's great that you're so open with your bitterness!" Tori responded. Jade simply rolled her eyes and resumed sucking on the bee sting.

"She's just grouchy because she got stung by a bee," Beck explained.

"See that?" Andre tapped Tori on the shoulder. "Everybody but me! Come on, bees, what's a guy gotta do to get stung?" Incredulously, Jade removed her finger from her lips, staring at Andre as if he was mental. Beck had to agree—who would _want_ to get stung by a bee?—but after a moment, they settled back in to their lunches, and Beck picked up the pink paper again.

"Oooh!" said Tori. "Script pages?"

She reached across and took the papers from his hand. "Uh-uh! Not for you," he said, taking them back. Tori looked confused.

"You auditioning for a play?"

"Sort of. It's a movie."

Tori looked stunned for a moment, and then smiled broadly. "That's so great! What movie?"

Before they could answer, they were interrupted by Jade, who had been watching them with a bored expression on her face. "I'm taking your pickle," she demanded, seizing Tori's pickle from her plate. They all stared at her, but Jade either didn't notice or (more likely) didn't care, smiling as she took a loud bite out of the pickle.

"So…the movie?" Andre asked.

Beck snapped back into attention. Right. The movie. "It's called _Misfire_. It's about this woman cop who gets fired and goes on a crazy rampage."

"That's so cool!" chimed in Tori. "Who plays the woman cop?"

He kept his voice nonchalant. "Melinda Murray."

"Shut up!" Andre nearly dropped his burrito.

"You're gonna star with Melinda Murray in a movie?" asked Tori in amazement.

"Well, I'd be playing Waiter #1 and only have two lines. That's if I get the part," Beck said.

Tori was undeterred. "So where's the script? I wanna read it!"

"Well, you don't get the whole script unless you get the part," he continued. "They only give you a few pages to audition with."

"Ow!" A sharp cry interrupted their conversation. They all turned to look behind Andre, where a tall girl with shiny brown hair was clutching at the sleeve of her pink sweatshirt. "I just got stung by a bee!" she cried, rubbing her arm.

Andre threw his hands up in disgust. "Ugh, her? Come on, bees, what's a guy gotta do around here to get stung?" The girl looked startled, and walked away quickly with her friends.

"Dude, what's your deal?" demanded Jade. "Bee stings hurt! How am I supposed to play piano during my lesson later?" She shoved her thumb forwards so that he could see.

"I wouldn't know," he answered snippily, "since I've never had one." Jade just rolled her eyes, apparently deciding that it wasn't worth an argument. As Andre and Tori started talking about their Spanish homework, Beck went back to reading his script. He only had two lines, but he had to make sure they were perfect. _I'm sorry, the chicken breast isn't available_. Shouldn't be too difficult.

"So you're going right from school, then?" said Jade.

Beck jumped, having forgotten that there were other people at the table. "Uh, yeah. Can you find another ride home?"

She sighed. "Of course I can. What do you think I am, socially incompetent?"

"Well, it's not like you actually like anyone else." Tori piped up sweetly. Jade glared at her. "_But_ maybe if you're nice, I'll ask Trina to give you a ride."

"I'm not going to say thank you. I can find my own ride."

"_Jade_," Beck warned.

She rolled her eyes again. "Fine. _Thank you_, Tori. I will take a ride home from you." She turned to Beck. "Happy now?"

"Very."

…

"Jade?"

It was eleven thirty at night, and for a second Beck was worried that he had woken his girlfriend up. He'd forgotten to charge his phone before the auditions, so he hadn't been able to call her until he'd gotten home—a fact that she was sure to be annoyed at, since he'd promised to call her as soon as he found out if he'd gotten the part. Beck crossed fingers that the good news would overrule her bad mood.

"Oh, so you finally remembered to call me, huh?" she snarked.

"Oh—yeah, sorry, my phone was dead…"

There was a pause. "Well?" She demanded.

"I got the part."

"You got the part?" Even over the phone, he could hear the excitement in her voice, and grinned. "That's gr-gr-great." She stifled a huge yawn, and his smile widened.

"Thanks, Jade."

"Obviously I knew you'd get it, so it's not like this is a surprise or anything, but still." From Jade, that was a huge compliment, so Beck decided to take it as such.

"Thanks. Anyways, I gotta finish my math homework, so I should probably go. But I thought I should let you know first."

"Wait! Don't leave yet. You have to tell me more about the movie! Are there any cute girls starring in it with you?"

"I'm not exactly starring—"

"_Beck!_"

He laughed. "No, not as far as I know. I'm only in one scene, and I start work tomorrow. My call time is, like, 5:30 a.m."

"Well, that sucks."

"Mm-hmm."

"Well, I suppose I should let you do your math homework. But say the line for me before you go."

"I'm sorry, but the chicken breast isn't available today."

"For real, congrats, Beck."

…

About five seconds after Melinda Murray appeared on set, Jade decided she hated the woman. She'd flounced in like she owned the place, then sat there with a haughty look on her face, as if she thought she was better than everyone. Rolling her eyes, Jade had taken her place at the table before the scene had started, flashing a small smile to Beck as he came over to "take their orders." At the sound of Melinda's high, demanding voice, however, she snapped to attention.

"Can we cut so this kid can learn his lines?"

Jade's eyes narrowed. Beck had been practicing his two lines all morning, and he'd definitely gotten the first one right. For his part, though, Beck took the criticism in stride, simply nodding and saying that he would get it right next time. Jade picked up her wineglass and took a sip, still annoyed.

"Um—wait, excuse me?" Tori's cheerful voice cut through the chaos. Slowly, Jade put her drink back down. This could not be good. Oblivious, Tori continued. "Actually, Beck got his line right."

"Tori," Beck laughed nervously, "no-no, no-no."

This was bad. An extra could not correct the main star. Obviously there were other people in the room with access to the script, and they hadn't bothered to correct Melinda. Why didn't Tori get it? Irritated, Jade leaned forward. "_Sit down_," she hissed through clenched teeth. But Tori pressed on good-naturedly, pointing out that Beck's line had been correct.

The director leaned down. "Oh, yeah. Kid, you got it right."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. What are _you_?" Melinda snipped, pointing at a now wide-eyed Tori.

"Tori Vega, background player, big fan, hi Melinda Murray!"

"Okay, an _extra_ is correcting _me_ on the set." Jade still didn't like the high and mighty tone in the woman's voice. Nor did she like the direction in which this was headed. As per usual, though, Tori had no sense of when to shut up.

"I'm sorry, um, but you yelled at my friend, and he was totally right about—"

"She's _your_ friend?" Melinda turned to Beck, who squirmed uncomfortably.

"Yeah, she's—uh—"

"Go."

Jade felt her mouth drop open. Surely this woman wasn't firing Beck for Tori's idiocy? Apparently, Beck couldn't believe it either. "Go?" He stammered.

"Melinda," protested the director, but Melinda Murray was having none of it.

"You want him here, or me?" By the looks on everyone else's face, Jade wasn't the only one shocked. Cat's mouth dropped open, and Andre lowered his eyes, looking at the ground.

The director looked at Beck. "Kid, I'm sorry…"

"No, it's cool." Jade felt her heart break slightly at the disappointment in Beck's voice. He didn't meet anyone's eyes as he walked off the set. Suddenly, Jade was angry. Beck was never disappointed or sad; he was always calm and rational. She hadn't liked Melinda Murray to begin with, but now, the woman had pretty much ensured herself a spot in Jade's next video of things she hated.

"No-no-no-no-no-no-no! Why'd you get mad at him? I'm the one who corrected you!" Tori protested, her voice high. Melinda seemed to consider her words for a minute.

"Good point. Bye!"

Jade couldn't help but feel some satisfaction as Tori dejectedly left the set. If only Tori had kept her big mouth shut, and actually _listened_ when people were telling her to be quiet, Beck would still have a job.

"Alright, guys, I guess we won't be doing the scene today after all," said the director. "We'll have to re-cast the waiter tomorrow. In the meantime, since you're all in costume, let's move outside for the scene outside the restaurant. Extras, we can still use you…"

Jade was on her feet before he'd even finished speaking. Wordlessly, she turned towards the door.

"Hey, kid, the next scene's this way!"

"I'm leaving," Jade announced, not bothering to hide her irritation. She caught Cat's eye; Cat nodded, still looking upset. Andre, also looking unsettled, followed Cat in the opposite direction.

Jade strode towards the exit as fast as her boots would carry her, but by the time she reached the street, Beck and Tori were already gone. She pulled out her cell phone, dialing Beck's number. After a moment, he picked up.

"Hey." He didn't sound angry, just down. Immediately, Jade launched into a tirade.

"That _idiot_. Why can't she keep her mouth shut? And that Melinda woman is such a bitch!"

"Jade—please. I know you mean well, I just…can't right now."

Jade was silent for a minute. "Beck," she said, her tone softer, "where are you?"

"I'm on a bus. There was one at the corner when I left. Where are you?"

"They cancelled the scene, so I left too. I guess I'll just take a bus too. Hopefully I won't run into that _moron_ on the way home."

She heard him sigh. "Jade, please don't blow this out of proportion right now—"

"Beck, she got you fired. She'd an idiot." He sighed again. "Hang on, is Tori with you?"

"No, she was just coming out of the building when I was leaving. She got fired too?"

"Yep. But she actually _deserved_ it, unlike some people—"

"Yeah, I know. It sucks."

"Beck…I'm sorry."

"Me too."

Half an hour later, she walked up to his banged up RV, the letters 143 still illuminated against the dark silver of the metal. She thought about banging on the door, but didn't really think it was appropriate, given the circumstances. Wow. Here she was, being _considerate_. What had gotten into her?

Vega, she thought angrily as the door swung open.

"Jade." Beck didn't sound surprised to see her standing there; in fact, he grinned slightly at the sight of her, still in the outfit she'd worn on the movie set.

"Beck." She pushed past him and into the RV.

"Jade, I know what you're going to say—"

"Yeah, I'm going to say it! How can she be so _stupid_? She should have listened to you, or to me, or to _any _of the thousand signs telling her to shut her mouth!"

"Jade, I know. But talking about it isn't going to make anything better. In fact…I really don't want to think about it right now."

She considered what to say next. She was furious at Tori, but if Beck didn't want to talk about it—well, he'd just gotten fired. She didn't want to make things worse. "Okay," she relented. "But tomorrow, you can't get mad at me if I scream at Tori."

"Jade…"

"Fine. If I express strongly-worded anger to Tori."

He rolled his eyes. "If you say so. Let's just do something else."

So, like complete losers, they did their homework for the next hour. Ordinarily, Jade would tease him, trying to distract him in—ahem—some way or another, but tonight, she could tell he wasn't in the mood. She finished up her English reading just as Beck checked his watch.

"It's eleven. Your mom might be worried; didn't you tell her you would be home at eight?"

Jade raised her eyebrows. "Beck, my mom never gets worried. She probably just thinks I'm at my dad's house or something."

"Still, it's getting late." He yawned. "And I got up at 4 a.m. for the movie. Do you need a ride home?"

"No, it's fine, I'll call Cat or someone. Maybe I'll even call Vega." Beck looked at her pointedly, and she huffed theatrically. "_Fine_. I'll call Cat." She gave him a quick kiss before standing up. Just before she left, however, Jade turned around once again. "Beck?"

"Hmm?"

"I'm sorry."

The next morning, Jade tried to bring up how annoyed she was at Tori, but Beck was having none of it. "Stop it," he said. "I'm not mad at her."

"At least we won't see her until lunch," Jade groused.

The morning passed far too quickly, though, and before she knew it, it was time for lunch. As she and Beck walked through the lunch tables, Jade saw Tori duck her head uncomfortably, and Andre (who for some reason had a keyboard. Jade had long since stopped asking questions about things like this) started playing menacing music. Jade couldn't help a smirk. Good—at least Tori was afraid of Jade. That meant she knew that her stupidity wasn't going to go unpunished. Still, when Beck made a beeline for Tori's table, Jade stiffened. She'd assumed that they'd actually eat alone for once.

"Can we sit somewhere else?" she demanded.

"Nope," said Beck cheerfully.

"Fine. Let's sit with the girl who couldn't keep her mouth shut and got you fired." Andre played a few more ominous notes, and Tori slumped her head.

"Beck, I swear, if there was anything I could do to make it up to you, I would."

"I _bet_ you would," Jade snapped, before she could help herself. Tori might as well have been offering to make out with Beck. She would have said more, but she was distracted by Andre again, who had begun playing more provocative music. Even Beck raised an eyebrow. Still, Jade wasn't going to miss an opportunity to vent her anger. "You know, if you really wanted to help, you wouldn't just _sit_ there like a bag of doorknobs. You'd do something!"

She felt herself getting angry again. How could Tori just sit there, moping around and whining about how sorry she was, instead of actually trying to fix the problem? Still, she knew Beck wouldn't want her to get into it at lunch. She stood up abruptly, picking up her bag.

"Where're you going?" called Beck resignedly.

"Anywhere else!"

She was about three steps from the table when Andre started playing the piano. Seriously? He couldn't respect that this was a serious situation? She turned around, grabbing Andre's keyboard. "Okay…" she muttered, finding the battery flap and flipping the keyboard over. Batteries spilled out onto the table. "And…that's for you." With that, she spun around and headed towards the parking lot.

Beck found her a minute later, sitting on the hood of her mother's car. "Are you going to calm down and be civil?" he asked.

Jade took her sunglasses off and stared at him incredulously. "Are you kidding me? Beck, she got you fired. She. Got. You. Fired. How, for the love of God, can you not be upset about it?"

"I am upset," he said, sitting next to her. "I—"

"Then _how_ can you tell me to lay off of her?"

"Because it was an accident."

"I don't care. She always does this, and you never care!"

"What do you mean?" Beck sounded genuinely confused. "As far as I know, Tori's never gotten anyone kicked off of a movie before."

"You know that's not what I meant! I just meant—ugh, never mind."

"No, seriously. What did you mean?"

"She—she always does stuff like this! She waltzes around like "oh, I'm Tori and I'm perfect and I have the best of intentions and I'm always sweet and nice and kind." And then she just screws everything up for the rest of us, and doesn't even realize it!"

"Jade—"

"Beck, we both told her to stop talking. But she's _Tori_, and she _has_ to be right and good and perfect, and so she kept talking like a moron! Seriously, what the hell is wrong with her? And now, you're just going to forgive her because she batted her eyelashes and whimpered about how _sorry _she is?" Jade finished her rant, breathing angrily.

"Jade," Beck said calmly. "You're right. It was a stupid thing to do, and I wish she'd listened to you. Or to me. But there's nothing she can do now, and being mad at Tori isn't going to change anything."

"You don't get it." Jade shook her head. "If it was me, I wouldn't be sitting around bleating about how sorry I was, I'd actually go do something about it and get you your job back! Obviously that would never happen, since I wouldn't do something that stupid, but that's not the point. Why doesn't she do something?"

"I don't know." Beck shrugged. "Is there anything she can do when we were both fired?"

"Well, if she doesn't do something, I will. I'm still on the movie. I'm not going to let Vega's stupidity cost you a part in a real movie."

She was still irate, but Beck laughed. "I have no doubt in my mind that you'll find a way to do it. Just don't kill anyone."

She almost cracked a smile. But then, Beck started to stand up, and Jade immediately opened her mouth to protest. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Um…back to our table?"

"Oh, no. I'm not going back there with Vega and Andre and that stupid keyboard."

"Cat's probably there by now."

"Still not going," she said loftily. "Are you going to stay here or leave the

"Fine," he said, rolling his eyes. "We can eat here for the rest of the period."

…

They were sitting in the RV again, doing homework, when he got the call.

"Hello? Wait, what?...I do?...What happened?" Jade sat up at the sound of the excitement in his voice. "Crystal what? Um, okay…okay…wow, thanks! I'll see you then!" He hung up, unable to contain a smile. "I got the part back!"

"Wait—you what?"

"That was the director." He still looked shocked. "Apparently there was some sort of accident on set. Some extra named Crystal Waters messed up, and Melinda Murray got hurt. So she's off the movie."

"Crystal Waters? What kind of name is that?"

"Actually, the director said it was the same extra who got yelled at the other day…"

"_Vega_?"

Beck nodded. "So it would seem."

She processed the information for a minute. "Well, at least she actually listened to me for once."

"Wait a minute." Beck studied her face. "You're jealous! You wish you'd been the one to get me my job back!"

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Aww, Jade, come on. Can't you just be happy that everything worked out?"

"I am happy!" she responded, surprised that he would think otherwise. "I'm really happy. I just…well…you know I would have done the same thing if I had had the chance."

He grinned. "I know. Don't worry, I know."

"Good." She smirked. "You know, I'm _really_ happy you got the job back…" she whispered.

"Oh, are you?" He raised an eyebrow suggestively.

"Mm-hmm…" she whispered, pulling him closer so that his face was inches from hers. "_Really_ happy."

…

**Well, that ending sucked. Oddly enough, I actually wrote the last parts (cafet/parking lot and the ending scene) like a month ago, before I wrote any of the beginning. I know I've said five zillion times that I wanted to do this episode, so I decided to man up and finish it. This is what I got.**

**Reviews remind me to update…seriously, though, the emails make me realize "oh shit, I should finish the five episodes that I started and never completed." So if there's anything you want to see, let me know, because I've most likely written half of it and then gotten distracted.**


	17. Like, or Love?

**Hello! I'm in the middle of another episode BUT I just saw the new video "Jade With Tots (And Beck)" and I had to write something...that video game me warm fuzzy feelings for a very long time and I've probably watched the end at least twenty times by now. Plus, I've gotten at least 4 requests for a chapter on this I the last 24 hours—wow! I'm honored, and I hope this lives up to people's expectations. So this chapter is for sushi.23, , RiverDeep, and Fran Marie. Sorry I couldn't post this sooner! I really wanted it to be perfect.**

**On a separate note, I've decided that my goal is to post one new update per week, probably on Sunday nights (but other nights are a distinct possibility as well).**

**As always, I don't own Victorious. I hope you like it!**

Walking down the hallway, Beck cursed himself for being so stupid. If he hadn't left his Theatre history book in his locker, he wouldn't have had to waste half an hour driving home, and then driving all the way back to school. Jade coming over later that night, and, as Beck as pretty sure that their activities would not include history notes or math problems, he could have—and _should_ have—been doing homework. As he neared his locker, however, he heard a familiar voice emanating from the Black Box Theatre.

"What do you like?" The voice, curt and impatient, was unmistakably Jade's. Beck raised his eyebrows. His girlfriend hadn't mentioned staying after school for any reason; in fact, she had offhandedly told him she was going home with Cat. He had a sneaking suspicion that she was up to no good.

"Swimming in the ocean!" The person who responded was definitely not another student. It sounded like…well, like a little kid. But it couldn't be. Jade had _promised_ him after the last video that she wouldn't do another segment of "Jade With Tots" for a while, and that she would come to him with her personal issues instead of scarring little children.

Case closed—or so he'd thought. Clearly, she hadn't taken _that_ particular conversation to heart. With a sigh, he moved closer to the Black Box Theatre, peering through the unclosed door.

Jade was sitting on the couch, facing a tiny blond kid with who couldn't have been older than four or five. With slight dismay, Beck noticed that the kid was wearing a pleated button-down shirt, his hands folded neatly in his lap and a dubious expression on his face. _Please_, Beck thought, _please let Jade go easy on the kid_. He knew that his silent plea was probably useless, but he was still curious as to how Jade would react to the kid's answer.

She looked slightly perplexed at the kid's response. "Really," she said flatly, leaning forward. "Well, did you know that oceans are actually filled with industrial toxic waste?" At the startled look on the little guy's face, Beck bit back a groan. Jade, however, either didn't notice or (more likely) didn't care, and plowed on. "And even the really clean oceans are filled with fish poop. So, do you really like _swimming_ in fish poop and industrial toxic waste?"

To his credit, the little boy didn't look too startled—just a little weirded out. He leaned back slightly, eyes narrowing, and said, "you're scary."

Uh-oh. This would not be good. No matter what image Jade tried to convey, she hated being told that people were afraid of her—Beck was the only one who could joke about her scaring him, and even he still remembered how offended she'd been when he'd laughingly told her about Andre's "she scares me" comment. Plus, the last time a younger kid had called Jade scary, she'd forced him to be in her bathtub horror movie to "teach him what scary means." The kid was probably still in therapy. It was time for Beck to step in before this got any worse.

He entered the room just as Jade leaned forwards, a devious smirk on her face. "You think so? Because I can be way scarier…"

This was not headed in a good direction. Silently, Beck padded across the room, until he was standing directly behind his girlfriend.

Jade did not appear to notice. "Tell me something—"

She stopped abruptly as Beck leaned down to pat her gently on the shoulder. "We're filming," she said impatiently. She didn't say it out loud, but her tone clearly conveyed her message: _what do you want_?

"Jade," he started, and then paused. He had no idea what to say. Jade clearly didn't think that she was doing anything wrong, and anything too accusatory would likely result in a screaming match.

"You're butting into my tot interview!" Jade snapped, sounding as if she was reprimanding a small child instead of her seventeen year-old boyfriend.

She crossed her arms irately, and Beck decided to just go for it. Sometimes, with Jade, it was best to just be direct. "Uh—it's not right."

Genuine confusion crossed her face. "What? What's not right?"

"You need to stop this."

"I'm just talking to them!" she protested. Beck rolled his eyes. Surely she had to know that telling a kid that his favorite activity was equivalent to swimming in fish poop did not exactly qualify as "talking."

"Look, you can't be so hard on a little kid," said Beck calmly, gesturing innocently to the little blonde guy seated on the couch. To his credit, the preschooler didn't even flinch; rather, he watched them curiously.

"No, I'm just asking them questions—"

"They're _little kids_." Beck emphasized the last two words, hoping she got the message. "It's just…it's just…not cool," he said finally. He rubbed her shoulder lightly so she wouldn't think he was attacking her.

Jade didn't contest his point, but she still looked confused, and Beck wondered what was going on in her brain. Finally, she opened her mouth. "Then who am I gonna interview?" she asked, sounding slightly more troubled than annoyed.

"Well, maybe it isn't the best time for you to be doing interviews," said Beck gently.

"But I have the camera all set up!" At his pointed look, she rolled her eyes and sighed theatrically. "_Fine_." She stood up, probably to turn off the camera. But at the sound of a small voice, both Jade and Beck froze.

"Maybe you should interview that guy."

The little kid stared at them sincerely, and Jade glared at him. "What? Why would I want to interview _him_?" She jerked her thumb at Beck.

"I don't know…" said the kid uncertainly. Beck nodded at him, trying to be encouraging, and the little guy seemed o regain his courage. "Well…you should interview him since he's right here."

Jade still didn't say anything, but Beck felt himself starting to grin. "What a _great_ _idea_," he enunciated. "Tell you what, little man. Why don't I walk you back to school, and then the 'scary girl' can interview me too." He smiled at Jade, who rolled her eyes.

"Fine. Whatever."

On the way to the preschool, Beck learned that the kid was four years old and had three older brothers, which probably explained his lack of fear around Jade. Beck also learned that the kid's name was Theodore. Silently, he thanked the Lord that Jade apparently hadn't asked for the kid's name. She would have had a field day with _Theodore_.

"Sorry if my girlfriend scared you, buddy," he said as they arrived at Happy Daze Pre-School.

The little boy made a face. "She didn't _scare_ me. She's just _weird_." Beck laughed as the little guy disappeared, and then turned back towards Hollywood Arts. Vaguely, he wondered how Jade perceived her "interviews." She knew Beck didn't like them—he'd been rather, ahem, _adamant_ after the second video that she not do another one. Partly because he didn't think the kids could take it, and partly because he knew Jade really, really didn't like thinking about little kids. Or childhood. Which was probably why she always ended up ranting about her own negative experiences, instead of actually interviewing the kids.

Come to think of it, he wasn't entirely sure why Jade West would ever want to interview children. Still, she'd sounded genuinely surprised at the thought that she could be hurting the kids simply by, as she'd put it, "asking questions." God. He didn't even want to think about the kind of childhood she must have had to thing that telling a child he was "swimming in fish poop" wasn't damaging in some way, shape or form.

Beck half-expected Jade to have taken down the camera equipment while he was gone, but when he entered the Black Box, he found her still sitting on the chair, looking bored. He sat down on the couch across from her.

"So," he said, keeping his voice casual, "you still want to interview me? You're not mad at me?"

She shrugged. "Well, I was, but then I realized that you're probably a lot more interesting than some stupid little kid anyways."

"Speaking of that little kid…really, Jade? Fish poop?"

"This coming from the guy who told Andre that bottled water was full of fish pee."

"Oh. Well…" Crap. She was right about that one. He'd seen some TV special the night before about how fresh water was limited, and how it had probably passed through a lot of other people's bodies as well, yaddi yaddi yadda. Still, that had been different. Andre was a sixteen year-old boy. Jade had been talking to a four year-old.

Jade smirked at his obvious loss of words. "Yeah, that's what I thought. Hypocrite."

"Jade, that's totally different. Theodore's just a kid! He probably—"

He stopped speaking at the sound of her snort. "_Theodore_?"

She laughed, and Beck felt the corners of his mouth twitch. He'd expected that reaction, but it was still amusing to watch her expression.

"Oh, god," she gasped. "_Why_ would you ever name your kid _Theodore_?"

Beck shrugged. "I don't know. I probably wouldn't."

"Yeah, I sure hope not."

Beck chuckled, and then sat up straighter. "So, are you gonna interview me or not?"

"Fine!" she said, although Beck still detected a trace of humor in her voice. She composed herself. "I ask you questions about what you like, and you answer me, okay?" she said, keeping her voice conversational.

Beck watched, amused, as she sat back and waited for his response. Leave it to Jade to actually treat this like a professional interview and not some four year-old's suggestion. Actually, Beck was still amazed that she'd actually listened to him at all (well, sort of). He pictured Jade sitting in the same chair, posing serious questions to preschoolers. God, she could be so ridiculous at times, and she didn't even realize it.

Which, he mused, was actually one of the most wonderful things about her.

Beck felt a sudden rush of affection for his girlfriend as she switched on the camera. Really, he didn't know how one person could be so exasperatingly smart and oblivious at the same time. But he did know that she could also be cute and funny and insecure when she let her guard down. For whatever reason, he never got tired of the never-ending enigma that was Jade West. Frankly, Beck was still amazed that she still wasn't bored of _him_.

Maybe it was time to remind her why.

Jade looked straight at him. "Tell me something that you like."

"Like, or love?" He kept his voice even.

"Love," she answered with a flippant shrug.

Beck pretended to contemplate his answer, but couldn't prevent the sheepish expression that spread across his face. He wasn't usually such a sap, but he couldn't help himself.

"You."

Instantly, her lips melted into a pleased smile. "Aww," she murmured, and Beck grinned widely.

In one fluid motion, she was off of her chair and into his lap, her lips colliding with his. Instinctively, his hand slid into her sleek, dark hair, pulling her closer; her hand wrapped around his neck. She felt so good—how had he forgotten to add _gorgeous_ to his mental description of Jade West?—and when she broke the kiss to turn off the camera, Beck almost pouted before she crashed her mouth hungrily back onto his.

He pulled her closer, hand running up her thigh, before hearing the tiny _beep_ that indicated the camera had been turned off. Jade dropped the remote with a clatter, and then her hand was on his waist, pulling up his shirt, running across his abs. Slowly he pulled her back onto the couch, until Jade was lying directly on top of him.

She giggled slightly as he squeezed the ticklish part of her side. "I'll get you for that," she growled.

"Oh, really?"

"Just you wait."

Their lips met again. After a few more minutes Jade tried to pull off his button-down shirt, but it caught on his wrist. "Damn it," she hissed. "What is this thing, childproof?"

He snickered. "Speaking of childproof…I hope that this isn't how _all_ of your interviews end."

Jade rolled her eyes, but didn't dignify him with a response. Smiling deviously, he brought his lips to her ear. "Was this interview _interesting_ enough for you?"

She smirked. "Very much so."

After a few more minutes, she pulled away. "Beck?" she mumbled against his lips.

"Mmm?"

"I love you too."


	18. It's Not Christmas Without You

**Wow – since the posting of the last chapter, this story's gotten almost 3000 hits, 1000 visitors, and almost 250 reviews total! You guys are awesome, thank you so much! It means a lot to me. **

** I've been working on this on and off for the last few weeks, but I just finished with exams, so I'm finally able to finish it – yay! I'm feeling moderately festive, so I hope you like it. As a side note, I'm going abroad next term, so updates will be somewhat more infrequent (boo), but I'm gonna do my best! One reviewer suggested trying to hit all of the episodes, and I may just do that.**

**Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: Not mine.**

"Dude, what the hell happened to you last night?"

Jade stared incredulously at her boyfriend, who looked worse than she'd ever seen him. Dark circles rimmed his eyes, and his hair was unkempt, sticking up oddly on one side. Of course, being Beck, it still made him look ruggedly handsome, but still—he looked like he'd just come back from a battle or something.

"Couldn't…sleep," he managed between yawns, slumping over the steering wheel.

She snickered. "Yeah, well, I don't think you can drive yet, either."

"Not true! I came all the way h-h-here…" his voice trailed off into another huge yawn.

"You have your high beams on, and you're parked completely crooked."

"…Oh."

Obediently, Beck climbed out of his truck and held the door open so that Jade could climb up into the driver's seat. Once he was situated in the passenger seat, he turned to her. "There's this cricket in the RV…it's been keeping me up for the past few nights."

Jade snorted. "Wait, is _that_ why I couldn't sleep over the other night?" At Beck's nod, she felt slightly irritated. "Beck, I had to eat dinner with my dad and the freaking stepmonster because you were 'too busy' for me to come over! Why didn't you just let me come over and kill it for you?"

"I…uh…didn't want you to wreck the place looking for it."

"Please. Like I would _wreck_ it." She tossed her head, and waited for his response, but Beck didn't answer. Instead, all she heard was a muffled snore—he had passed out in the driver's seat, his head slumped like a rag doll against the window.

Jade rolled her eyes. Good thing she was driving.

Since the lines at Skybucks were always hellish on Monday mornings, Jade usually brought coffee in a mug, so they didn't need to stop. Looking at her boyfriend, however, she wondered if maybe she should get him some coffee. She almost dismissed the thought—it was a Monday morning, why was she being _nice_?—but she reasoned that she couldn't have her boyfriend sleeping all day. Besides, she barely slept, and coffee always worked for her. At the ext light, Jade put on her blinker, and Beck jerked up at the sound.

"We at school yet?" he said, wide-eyed.

"No, loser, I'm getting you coffee since you obviously can't say awake."

"But it's Monday. We'll be late. I'll just get some at the Grub Tuck after first period."

"Okay, moron, but don't come crying to me when you can't stay awake all morning."

"Somehow I feel like Sikowitz will keep me up."

But he moved slowly all morning, grabbing the wrong books and forgetting to close his locker as they left for class. Stumbling into Sikowitz's class after her, he immediately keeled over onto the chair, head in his hand. Jade couldn't help but feel slightly annoyed at the whole situation—seriously, he couldn't just man up and drink some caffeine?—but at least they hadn't run into any of the others before class. Judging by Cat's annoying perkiness, it wouldn't have been a pretty scene.

Her musings were interrupted by the sound of Andre and Tori arguing loudly as they barged through the door. Tori was begging Andre to come down, but Andre was still shouting something about being done with music forever. Tori threw up her hands in frustration, and Andre slumped over petulantly, both clearly frustrated.

Robbie, who for some reason was dressed as Santa Claus, obliviously tried to cheer them up with a "Ho, ho, ho, and jingle bells!" Uncharacteristically (and against Tori's pleas), Andre stood up and picked up Robbie's chair, throwing Robbie to the floor. Jade couldn't resist—the timing was too perfect. "I bet that jingled his bells," she muttered. Unfortunately, although Beck usually would have snickered or showed _some_ appreciation for her great wit, he was fast asleep, still snoozing on the chair.

As Robbie gingerly picked himself off the floor, Andre whined something about how he didn't feel much like Christmas spirit. Immediately, Sikowitz crossed his arms. "Andre," he said, "do you have a beef with Christmas?" Jade had to admit that she was curious as well; the last time she'd seen Andre this down was when he'd lost the record deal. She hoped it wasn't something serious like that—she may not have been the friendliest person, but it wasn't like she didn't have a heart.

Before Andre could answer, however, a high-pitched voice cut in. "I love Christmas beef! Every year my brother steals a chuck roast and then rubs it with—"

"_Cat_!" Jade practically screeched. It came out shriller than she'd intended, but Jade brushed off any remorse. Usually she had more patience with the redhead, but for God's sake, Cat was almost seventeen years old. Why, for the love of God, did she not realize that she didn't have to babble on about everything?

Cat looked slightly put out, but recovered within thirty seconds. Beck, however, jumped at the sound of Jade's voice.

"What? Wha—oh. Hey, you woke me up!" he said indignantly. He must have been more sleep deprived than Jade thought, because he sounded genuinely angry, which was unusual. Whatever. Not her problem if he was going to be cranky.

"Ooh, sorry, Beck, I certainly wouldn't want to keep you _awake_ during my class!" said Sikowitz. Beck, though, either didn't notice or didn't care, and simply yawned a "thanks, you're the best" as he drifted back to sleep.

"Andre," said Sikowitz, sitting down thoughtfully, "why the sourpuss?"

"Yeah," echoed Rex, "why the sourpuss?" (Jade refrained from slapping him).

"I don't really want to talk about it," mumbled Andre moodily. Whatever this was, Jade was willing to bet five dollars that it wasn't as dramatic as Andre was making to out to be.

Tori stood up, and Jade nearly snickered. Leave it to Saint Tori to try and explain everybody else's problems. "Andre wrote a Christmas song," Tori explained. Andre moaned. "And it was a really good song! But his teacher gave him a—"

"_Don't say it out loud_!"

Tori backed off at Andre's sudden outburst. "Okay…"

"A 'D'! Ahh!" exclaimed Andre, looking horrified. "Ahh! I said it out loud!"

Jade fought the urge to roll her eyes. Andre was, admittedly, the most "normal" of their friends, but he was still a major drama queen sometimes. He knew he was a talented musician; one bad grade wouldn't kill him.

"I've always gotten A's in music! How does a person go from an A to a D?"

Jade wasn't usually the type to make "that's what she said"-type jokes, but the line was too perfect. The words just slipped out before she could stop them.

"Happened to me in eighth grade."

There was a collective gasp as everyone stared towards Jade; out of the corner of her eye, she saw Robbie's mouth drop open. Cat giggled. Too bad that Beck, who would have appreciated her humor most of all, was still slumbering beside her. Otherwise, she was sure even he would have laughed (or at least, his lips would have twitched or something, and he would have told her after class that she was amusing, just like usual).

Sikowitz, though, ignored her completely (or maybe he just had no idea what she'd meant). "Well, I'm sorry, Andre. Now"—he leaned over towards Beck—"YO!"

"Wh—augh! Wow, wow." Beck jumped up as if he'd been electrocuted.

"Why Becky so sleepy?"

Jade nearly snorted again. Beck _hated_ being called Becky, almost as much as she hated being called any sort of pet name.

"There's a stupid cricket in my RV, so I can't sleep _all night long_," Beck snapped, sounding more annoyed than he ever did, except when they were arguing. Still, there was an easy solution to his problem. Plus, if this bad mood lasted for more than a day or two, he probably wouldn't feel like doing anything fun. Like making out. Or anything like that.

Jade couldn't have that, so she decided she should intervene. "Why don't you just call one of those bug murders or something?"

"You mean an exterminator?" asked Tori in a _duh_ voice.

"Yeah, why sugarcoat it?" Jade retorted. Tori backed off. Good. Jade _hated_ when Tori tried to act like she was smarter than Jade.

Sinjin came in, and Jade stopped paying attention; she'd learned that she was less likely to attract the little creep's attention if she zoned out. But before long, Sikowitz's voice snapped her out of her daze, demanding why none of them had signed up for the school's Secret Santa exchange. She sighed. Next to her, Beck had already passed out again. Amateur. He was going to have some caffeine, whether he liked it or not.

"Why should we buy gifts for random people we don't care about?" she asked bluntly. There was a murmur of agreement.

"All right," said Sikowitz. "You kids need a little Christmas spirit rammed into your hearts!" Beck jumped up again as Sikowitz passed by, and Jade bit the edge of her mug to keep from snickering at the glare etched across his face. However, she didn't need to restrain herself for long; Sikowitz's next words killed any humor in her system.

"Therefore, as your teacher, I require you to participate in Secret Santa!" Ignoring all of the subsequent groans, Sikowitz told the class that he would text them their assignments. "And I expect you all to give very good, very creative gifts."

_Riiiiight_. Like that was going to happen. The only person Jade intended to get a gift for was Beck…maybe. "And what if we don't?" she asked calmly.

Sikowitz got directly up in her face. His breath reeked of onions, and Jade willed herself not to lean away—she didn't want him to think he could intimidate her. "The worst gift," he announced, "will have to join me on Christmas Eve for Christmas yodeling."

"What's Christmas yodeling?"

"_Tori_!" Jade practically shrieked. She wasn't alone; nearly everyone else expressed their irritation in some (slightly less loud) form. Sikowitz, though, was undeterred, and started yodeling in the front of the class. Loudly. Jade groaned loudly, cupping her hands to her ears to block out the noise, but it was too late. Sikowitz yodeled for another minute. With a start, she felt Beck's head slide onto her shoulder—he had fallen asleep again, despite the racket. _Must be nice_, she thought.

After class, Jade practically dragged Beck out into the hallway. "Dude, you gotta wake up. This is getting ridiculous."

"What am I supposed to do?"

Was he serious? "I don't know, kill the damn cricket!"

"I can't," said Beck. "It's in my walls, or something. I can't find it."

"Seriously?" Jade stopped walking to face Beck. "You can't just, like, sleep in your parents' house until it's gone, or something?"

"No!" Now he just sounded petulant. Still, Jade knew he hated sleeping in his parents' house almost as much as she hated sleeping in either of her parents' houses, so she let that slide.

"Well then, I dunno, drink some coffee or something?"

"Yeah," he said, sounding slightly defeated. "Maybe I should."

"You think? Go get some. Now!"

"Okay, f-f-fine." Beck yawned again. "See you later."

Jade rolled her eyes at his retreating back. It was about time.

…

Later that evening, she was playing the piano when her phone beeped—_Message from Sikowitz_. Unenthusiastically, she clicked "accept," and then groaned aloud. She could have gotten anyone, but—of _course_—she _had_ to get Tori. Tori freaking Vega. What the hell was she going to get for someone that she barely even liked (and even then, only sometimes)?

Just then, her phone rang. Without looking at the caller ID, she pounded the "accept" button. "What?" she barked.

"Hey, what's wrong?" She recognized Beck's voice, but he didn't sound surprised, just (unsurprisingly) tired.

"I got freaking Tori for my Secret Santa! What the hell was Sikowitz thinking? How could he"—

"Okay, calm down." She took a breath, but could still feel anger coursing through her veins as Beck continued. "So you got Tori. How bad could it be?"

"Would it be bad if I got her a chain saw?"

She swore he was stifling a laugh, and scowled. She wasn't exactly kidding. "You can't get her a chain saw," he reprimanded. "How hard can it be to get a nice, generic present for a girl?"

"Like I'm spending any of my money on Tori."

"I promise you, it won't be that bad."

"That's what you think." Jade bit her lip, contemplating what she could do, but she couldn't think of anything. Then, suddenly, she had an idea.

"Trade with me."

"What?"

Jade tapped her foot impatiently. "I said, trade with me. Your Secret Santa for mine."

"Um, are you sure about that? Because I got Robbie."

"…Oh."

"That's what I thought."

She had been hoping he would have said Cat or Andre, but Robbie was almost as bad as Tori. What would she get a scrawny little boy who spent his time with his hand shoved up a puppet's rear end? Besides, on second thought, she wasn't sure she wanted Beck spending his time buying a present for Tori. "Fine," she said. "I'll ask Sikowitz to trade me tomorrow."

"Yeah, good luck with that," said Beck. "So I was calling because—hey, wait a minute, I think I hear that cricket again. Sorry, can I call you back? He sounds close and I want to catch him."

She frowned, although she knew Beck couldn't see her. "Fine, whatever. I'll just see you tomorrow. Good luck with the cricket."

The next morning, Jade picked up Beck on her way to school. Ordinarily it would have been the other way around, but by the tone of his text message he hadn't caught the cricket, and she wasn't sure he should be driving if he was so tired. Irritably, she pulled up to his RV, but before she could knock on his door he came bounding down the steps. Huh. That was weird. Beck rarely showed that much energy, especially in the mornings.

He climbed into the passenger seat, shutting the car door with enough force to shake the car.

"God, don't break my door."

"Jeez, why don't you calm down? You slam my door, like, all the time."

Her boyfriend's usually calm voice was about three keys higher than usual, and his words were all jumbled together. Plus, he was reprimanding her in the morning, which he never did. What the hell?

She turned to him calmly. "Beck, why are you talking to me like a rabid chipmunk?"

He paused for a second before the words continued spilling into the phone. "I dunno, I feel fine. Can we stop for coffee on the way there?"

"No sleep again?"

He closed his eyes against the passenger seat. "At like 4 AM I gave up and just made myself some coffee. But I think it's wearing off, so I probably need more by now."

"Haven't you learned, Beck? You don't need a reason to need coffee. I _always_ need coffee, even when I've gotten a million hours of sleep."

After they made their way through the drive through, Beck sipped his coffee and leaned back with a satisfied sigh. After a minute, he said, "this is great. Coffee is so great. You're great."

She looked sideways at him, eyebrows raised. "Are you feeling okay?"

His eyes snapped open, and he propped himself up. "I don't think I've ever been better. I feel awesome. Coffee is awesome. I don't even feel tired anymore."

"O-_kay_." Jade was about to comment further, but before she could, she was distracted as another car nearly hit hers. God, she hated bad drivers. Unfortunately, Hollywood Arts was full of them. This was why she never drove to school. Finally, she pulled into a parking spot, cursing at the idiot next to her who had practically parked in two spots. As she and Beck (who had been mercifully silent for the last few minutes) got out of the car, she spotted a familiar mop of hair—Sikowitz.

"Sikowitz, I gotta talk to you! _Now_."

"Why, Jade! I'm glad to see you got into the Christmas spirit today!"

"What?"

"Your hair is green today!" he exclaimed, pointing at her teal extensions.

"My hair was green yesterday. _And_ the day before."

"Your point?" He looked at her expectantly, but Jade just looked confused. Then Sikowitz clapped his hands. "Well, what was it that you wanted?"

Jade figured it was better to get right to the point before Sikowitz got distracted. "I don't want to be Tori's Secret Santa! I don't even like her!"

"Now, Jade, that's not going to cut it. I know you didn't want to do Secret Santa, but it's too bad, you have to do it."

"I don't care, I'll do it. Just give me anyone else!" she protested as they entered the hallway. A few students standing nearby looked over at her and stepped back slightly.

"Jade." Sikowitz's tone was firm. "You're Tori's Secret Santa and that will be that."

"Why," she demanded, "_why_ do I have to be"—

"He said it's not going to change it so just deal with it, why don't you just deal with it, why don't you just deal with it, huh?"

Momentarily stunned, Jade and Sikowitz turned to stare at Beck, who was bounding up and down slightly as he talked. Apparently the latest cup of coffee had pushed him over the edge. Amateur. Sikowitz grabbed Beck, throwing one arm around his shoulder and resting the other hand on his heart.

"His heart is vibrating!" He stared at Beck incredulously. "How much coffee have you drunk?"

"A lot, like a lot, I don't know, like, seven cups, a lot, is that a problem?" He stopped rambling momentarily to take another sip of coffee, and Jade took it upon herself to explain.

"He's drinking coffee to stay awake in school because the stupid cricket is keeping him awake."

"Lotta coffee," supplied Beck helpfully, bouncing up and down. She and Sikowitz stared at him for a minute, and then Jade figured she might as well deal with Beck after she had changed her Secret Santa assignment.

"Look," she said, with the slightest trace of desperation in her voice. "I don't want to be Tori's Secret Santa." Beside her, Beck continued bouncing. Sikowitz leaned forwards, and for a second Jade thought he understood, and was about to give her good news.

She should have known better. "Too bad," he cackled, before bounding away.

With that, any chance of Jade being in a good mood vanished, and Beck's jumping was suddenly more annoying than funny. "Stop bouncing!" she snarled, grabbing him by the arm.

"I can't!"

She dragged him all of the way to her locker and began grabbing various books, uncaring of which one she pulled out. "Ugh! How on Earth am I going to get Tori a present that doesn't suck?"

"I dunno, I dunno, I dunno, I dun"—

"Beck!" Jade nearly shrieked. "Stop it! I could drink twelve cups of coffee a day and still be fine! You're acting like a child."

"Sorry. So sorry," he mumbled, still jittery.

"Yeah, well, no more coffee for at least two hours."

Fortunately, Beck's jitters must have worn off in about an hour, because when Jade saw him next, he was markedly calmer. "Hey, I've been thinking"—

"That you shouldn't have any more coffee for a little while? Yeah, me too. God, I can't even explain how annoying you were this morning."

He stopped. "Hi, nice to see you too, hope you had a good morning," Beck said, kissing her lightly on the cheek.

"It would have been better if I didn't have to buy a gift for…" Jade trailed off as Tori dashed up to them. "Hello, Tori."

"Hey, Tori." Beck sounded like his usual self again.

"Guys, don't know what to do. I have to get something great for my Secret Santa! But the present I got for him sucks and Robbie got Cat a cotton candy machine and now I don't know what to do…"

"Stop babbling." At Jade's command, Tori abruptly shut up.

"You need a present for your Secret Santa?" mused Beck.

Tori looked desperate. "I can't think of anything!"

"I can't think of anything!" Jade mimicked in her Judy Garland voice.

"I don't talk like that!" she gasped. "Clearly, you're no help." She stalked off, and Jade turned to Beck, whose eyes were still a little brighter than usual.

"Come on, insomniac. Let's eat."

…

It was the end of the next day, and as they moved towards Beck locker, Jade thought of something. "What do you think your Secret Santa will get you?" she asked Beck.

He shrugged hazily. "At this rate, ear plugs."

"Why don't you just call the bug murderer guy again?"

Beck sighed. "I can't let my parents know that I don't have everything under control. They think I'm fine. I don't feel like having them interfere with my life any more than they have to."

"If you insist."

Jade knew what it was like to want independence, but she drew the line at not sleeping for days. However, something in Beck's voice said it wasn't something he wanted to discuss, so Jade changed the subject. "Hey, what are you getting for Robbie, anyways?"

"You'll see."

As they neared Beck's locker, Jade immediately stiffened. Leaning against her boyfriend's locker was a slender girl with soft brown hair and a pretty, heart-shaped face. She was wearing a long pink cardigan that was belted over tights—_so _not Beck's type. Jade turned to Beck.

"Why is _she_ waiting for you?"

To her surprise, he grinned. "You remember that girl Robbie's always complaining about?"

Well, _that_ wasn't what she had been expecting. "Which one?"

"The one who used to beat him up when he was a kid."

Jade snorted. "Again, which one?"

"That girl Christy Vaqueros, from when Robbie was seven."

"Yeah?"

"Well…I found her. She goes to Northridge."

Jade felt her eyebrows jump in surprise. "That's the 'beefy girl' Robbie's always complaining about?"

"Yep," said Beck. "I'm going to bring her to Robbie, and let him tell her off. Except I'm not sure he'll want to, since she's kinda pretty now."

"Excuse me?"

"I mean…you know, a guy like Robbie might think she's pretty. She's definitely average."

"Better," said Jade with a satisfied smirk.

"Hey, I'm going to bring her to Robbie. Do you think you could bring me some coffee in the meantime? I'm dying for some caffeine. Since Robbie's locker is right next to yours, we could just meet there."

Ordinarily, Jade wouldn't have taken orders from her boyfriend, but she stopped the retort that was forming in her mouth when she actually looked at him. There were dark circles forming under his brown eyes, and his entire posture drooped slightly. He definitely wasn't as jittery as he had been the day before, so it was probably safe to give him coffee. Still…

"How many cups have you had today?" she asked, eyeing him suspiciously.

"Just two! We didn't stop on the way here, remember? I just need caffeine. Pretty please? I'm desperate."

"When did this cricket thing even start?"

"I think it was like…November 28th."

"November?" She practically shrieked. "You haven't been sleeping for three weeks?"

Beck gave her a look "Fine," she said, exasperated. "But just this once. Don't get used to it."

"Get me as much as you can!" he called after her. She rolled her eyes.

Twenty minutes later, she strolled back through the hallway to her locker. The coffee cart had been full (which was why she hated buying coffee at school to begin with), and the guy in front of her had tried to hit on her since she wasn't with Beck. Ugh. Beck should have just stopped at Skybucks on the ride home. "I got the largest one they sold," she said impatiently.

"It's not enough!" he said, sounding desperate.

This was getting ridiculous, and Jade decided she needed to say something. "Beck, that cricket's been keeping you awake for over a month now! It's"—

"Hi!" Cat skipped up to them brightly. "Secret Santa time!"

She grinned ecstatically, but didn't say anything else. There was a pause. "Are you mine or his?" said Jade finally.

"Yours!"

"Give it." Cat passed the large red bag over to Jade, and despite her bossiness she actually felt a slight swoop of excitement. Even if Cat had been required to get her a present, Jade still rarely received any presents because her mom couldn't afford much, and her dad—surprise, surprise—always forgot. She hadn't expected anything from anyone but Beck.

Just as she was preparing to open it, the last voice that she wanted to hear chirped in her ear. "Hey, guys, I"—

"Shut _up_, Tori! I'm opening a Christmas present!" God, didn't Tori know when she wasn't wanted? A kid passing by muttered "Grunch," but Jade ignored him.

Impatiently, she pulled out the tissue paper, not expecting much (this was from Cat, after all). However, her hand closed on something hard and plastic.

"Oh my god, Cat, you did not," she intoned, pulling out the box. It contained the shiniest, most beautiful pair of scissors Jade had ever seen. Cat squealed in response, and Jade felt sudden affection for the perky redhead. How had she even gotten these?

"They're scissors," said Beck, clearly not understanding.

"They're special scissors!"

"Okay!" He backed off.

"They're from a real movie," explained Cat.

Well, duh. Why else would they be in such great condition? Jade examined the blades as they glinted under the fluorescent lights. "What movie were they used in?" asked Tori, clearly trying to be friendly.

"The Scissoring," said Jade, feeling the writing engraved on the side.

"Wait, that—that one about the girl who comes back from the dead, and uses those scissors on her two best friends?" said Tori, sounding repulsed.

"Yep," said Beck.

"Starting with the pretty girl," Jade added, smiling as she swung the blades between her fingers. Man, they felt nice. She couldn't believe Cat had actually gotten them for her—the metal felt so nice and cool in her hand, and the craftsmanship was clearly superior. Beck looked over her shoulder, but Jade could tell that he didn't know why they were so special. Whatever.

"Oh," said Tori. "Anyway, you guys, I'm like, Andre's Secret Santa and I have no clue what to give him!"

"Just get him a present!" piped up Cat.

"My god," muttered Beck, exchanging a look with Jade. Sometimes, she wondered if Cat was getting dumber instead of smarter. Tori patted Cat on the shoulder.

"Okay," begged Tori. "Help me? Please? I don't want to give him the worst present and then have to go Christmas yodeling with Sikowitz!"

Please. Like Jade cared. Actually, it would be better if Tori got Andre a terrible present, because then her own chances of Christmas yodeling with Sikowitz (something she was _not_ willing to do, no matter what) would go down. "Two words," she said tonelessly.

"I bet they won't be helpful!" interjected Beck. Jade ignored him, looking at her scissors.

"Your problem."

Beck raised his eyes to the ceiling. "I was right."

Cat giggled, and Tori looked worried. "I don't know what to do! I…" She trailed off abruptly as Andre came into sight, arguing loudly with his music teacher about whether or not he deserved an A for his Christmas song. "Oh darn, I better run before he hears me talking about him!" With that, Tori backed away, with Cat following her.

"Thank God," Jade mumbled, still examining the blades of her newest pair of scissors. She ran her fingers up and down the sleek metal, and against the point—even five years after the movie, they were still sharp. It was a miracle, really.

"You know, it's Christmas. You could be nice to Tori," Beck told her with a yawn.

"Yeah, yeah." She slammed her locker, and they made their way to the parking lot. She had driven him (again…unsurprisingly), and she wasn't looking forward to the ride home, since Beck appeared to be in a bad mood. Still, he held the door for her, so his mood couldn't have been that terrible. Either that, or he was smart enough to know that even when he was annoyed, not holding the door for her would only make things worse.

"So back to what I should get for Tori," she said finally as they were settled into the car. "All I have to do is get her something better than what she gets for Andre. So maybe I want her to get him a bad gift."

"Jade," said Beck sharply. "You like Andre. Remember?"

"Oh yeah."

They drove in silence for a minute when suddenly something came to Jade. "I know! I'll tell Tori what to get Andre. That'll be my gift to her."

"That's great," said Beck, clearly unimpressed. "What'll that be?"

"What's something that Andre really wants?" she asked aloud.

Beck shrugged, still draped against the seat. "An A in songwriting...but that's kind of a lost cause."

"Yeah, I guess so."

They rode the rest of the way in silence. Normally, Jade would have snapped at Beck for falling asleep in her car, but she actually didn't mind today. He looked kind of cute when he was asleep, anyways. They pulled into his driveway, and Beck groaned as she shook him awake.

"Come on, lazy, time to go inside. My little brother has a half day today and I want to spend the minimum amount of time possible at that house with him and the stepmonster."

"You couldn't even listen to Christmas music?" asked Beck as she switched off the radio. She didn't dignify him with a response, but he kept talking, wondering aloud why the a capella groups in their school didn't perform more Christmas music.

"That's it!" she said suddenly, excitement rising in her voice.

"What's it?"

"Performing Christmas music!"

"I don't get it."

"That's what Tori can do for Andre. She can perform his song in front of his music teacher, and maybe his teacher will change his mind."

"That's not a bad idea, actually," said Beck, rubbing her shoulder. "But when will you do it?"

"I'll have to tell Tori tonight," she said. "That way, it'll be my gift to her. And I guess Cat and I should sing it with her, since I don't want her stealing all of the attention." Ignoring Beck's laugh, she continued. "Besides, I hate when Vega gets to sing all of the solos. We'll only make it sound better."

"I know," he said, patting her shoulder.

Jade had secretly hoped that Beck was going to give her his Christmas present (she actually had hers in her backpack), but he made no such gesture. She didn't want to seem like a wimp and give him his present first—oh God, what if he hadn't gotten her anything? Unlikely, but still, it was better to wait until he initiated it. They settled down to watch Degrassi (his grandmother had given him the DVD and, despite Jade's protests, she actually kind of liked the emo-girl with the red hair who was dating the badass outcase. It sort of felt like her and Beck) on his couch, Jade curled against Beck's shoulder.

"You know what this means?" he asked, his voice muffled against Jade's sweatshirt.

"No, what?"

"This means," he said, stifling a snicker, "that you have to go to Tori's house by yourself."

"Don't remind me."

Before long, it was dark outside. Her dad wanted her home at 8 for dinner, and Tori was probably a good girl who went to bed at like, 10 PM, so Jade figured she should probably head over to the Vegas' house now (although the thought made her slightly nauseated). Beck didn't protest as she extricated herself from the couch, he only rubbed her hand slightly and mumbled something like "have fun."

"As long as I shower afterwards," she muttered.

…

Jade was nervous. She rarely got nervous, so she wasn't sure why—it wasn't like her grade was on the line. Probably she was just worried that the entire thing would backfire, and then it would be her fault, causing her to go yodeling. Or something like that. But as soon as the music started, she felt all of her nerves wash away. Particularly when she threw off her coat and saw Beck's eyes widen at the sight of her skimpy little dress. True, it wasn't Jade's style, but she had to admit that she loved the boots. Plus, she looked hot, so she could go with it.

Before long, Jade saw with satisfaction, the entire hallway of students was dancing, including her own boyfriend. Even Anthony, the music teacher, seemed into it. She thought she saw Beck's smile widen slightly as hers and Cat's solos came up, and she shimmied slightly when she was in front of him.

As the song ended, Jade couldn't stop herself from beaming as everyone cheered, and Andre hugged each of them in turn. As the hallway cleared out, however, she noticed Beck curled up on the ground against the lockers. Grumbling, she walked over to him (pranced was more like it; the freaking boots made everything seem more dramatic).

"Hey loser, time to wake up."

"What? Sorry. Oh, nice job singing," he said, blinking blearily.

"Yeah, I can tell that we kept you awake. For your information, Andre's grade was changed to an A."

"Wow, great. Seriously, though, I only curled up when you finished the song."

"So let me get this straight." She knelt down next to him (she was _not_ getting this dress dirty). "You can't sleep through a cricket, but you can sleep through a crowd."

"That's…um…different."

"Yeah, I can see that." Jade rolled her eyes. "It's the last day of school, and you're leaving for stupid Canada tomorrow. What do we do now?"

He sat up, and Jade didn't miss the beat where he eyed her outfit appreciatively. "Maybe we should just go into Sikowitz's classroom for a bit," he suggested, half-smiling. She followed him through the hallway and into the now-deserted classroom, and was pleased to see him pull a small box from his backpack. Raising an eyebrow, she dug through her own backpack, pulling out the impeccably wrapped box she'd had on her all week.

"You first," he said after a moment. She shrugged.

"Obviously."

She tore into the package to find a small white box, which she immediately recognized from the jewelry store in the mall. Opening the box, she saw two tiny pairs of scissors—earrings, she realized in silent delight. Beck had actually gotten her _scissor_ earrings. She tried to hide her joy at the present, but he caught her expression and laughed slightly.

"I found them while I was shopping for my cousin, and I figured they were better than the gift I'd already gotten you."

"They're perfect," she said, pulling out one and examining it. It even opened and closed, like a real pair of scissors.

"I suppose," said Beck, "that the only danger is that you don't cut your ear while you wear them."

"I would love that," she told him, only half-kidding. Then she realized what he had said earlier. "Wait, did you say you'd already gotten me something?"

"Oh—well—sort of." He held up his necklace that matched hers, and Jade noticed for the first time that something else was attached to it—a tiny letter J.

"I got it a while ago. But because of the cricket you didn't take a nap at my place or anything, and you always wear your necklace, so I didn't have time to sneak it onto the chain."

"Aww!" she said before she could help herself.

Beck grinned. "I've been waiting all week for you to notice it, but you didn't, for some reason."

"It's because I haven't had any reason to unclothe you," she informed him. "Otherwise, I definitely would have noticed it." Still,-what was with her today?—she couldn't stop smiling. Beck had actually gotten her two presents, and she'd liked both of them. That was rare. He got major bonus points for now.

He smiled. "I thought maybe you could come over this afternoon? Andre got rid of the cricket, so it'll finally be peaceful. And I don't leave until tomorrow," he said, rather…suggestively.

She didn't answer, but instead frowned. "Wait, he already got rid of the cricket?"

"Yeah, that was his Secret Santa present to me," said Beck. "Wait…why…?"

"Well…um…you probably won't really like my present as much, then."

"I'm sure it'll be fine," Beck said, digging into the wrapping paper. Then he started to laugh.

"It isn't funny, Beck!" she pouted, crossing her arms over her chest. "I worked really hard to find that."

He pulled out a large black spray bottle with a crossed out cricket on the front of it. "It's a really great cricket killer," she explained. "See? It's called The Bug Murderer. The lady at the store said it would kill crickets for sure. I didn't know Andre would go and ruin it!"

"No, this is great, I swear. I love it," said Beck. "Seriously, this is fine. I'm flattered that you care enough to get it."

"It was fine. I love Home Depot. They have power tools."

"I'm sure you do."

"Well, in the meantime, consider it an additional gift that you can keep wearing that J on your necklace. I'm fine with people knowing that you belong to me."

He pulled her in for a hug, still chortling slightly. "Merry Christmas, Jade."

"Merry Christ—"

"Jade! Beck!" They turned (Jade very irately) at the sound of Sikowitz's voice, but their teacher didn't seem to notice. "You guys are testing breaking it in, I see? _Excellent_."

"Breaking _what_ in, exactly?" asked Jade stiffly.

"Why, the mistletoe, of course!" Jade looked up to see an ugly sprig of leaves above her head. She'd never seen mistletoe before, but she'd always thought it would be prettier. Huh. Oblivious, Sikowitz continued, "I read in some book that it contains these creatures called _nargles_ that are really dangerous, so I'm glad you two determined that it is, in fact, safe for human use."

"Uh…yeah," said Beck cautiously. "Sure."

"Now leave!" barked Jade. Sikowitz simply shrugged and closed the door. She turned back to Beck.

"Now…where were we?" she asked.

"I think we were somewhere around here," Beck answered, pulling her into a kiss.

**Again, craptastic ending, but I'm moderately satisfied. Sorry this took so long! It's almost 7,000 words and I spent FOREVER on it. I'll probably edit it 3485394583 times, but I wanted it up for Christmas.**

**Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, and Happy New Year to everyone! Thanks so much to everyone who has taken the time to review my story, it means so much to me!**

**PS – I'm sure everyone knows where I got nargles from – I don't own them, they are the property of J.K. Rowling.**


	19. The Marker

**Hi! I'm not dead!**

**First of all, I'm SO sorry that it's been so long since I updated this story. I have been studying abroad with no internet this past term (and am now officially a college junior, hollaaaaaa), and recently tore my ACL, so things have been a little crazy. So, in short, I'M SO SORRY! Thanks for anyone who is still reading this…**

**Because I was abroad I didn't even learn about the Bade break up until I go back in June (yeah, I wasn't thrilled either), so that dimmed some of my inspiration for this story quite a bit. I don't think I can write "The Worst Couple" for a while, but I will do it at some point because the look on Jade's face at the end broke my heart. I'll try to focus on other episodes and Slap posts, though, to see what happens.**

**Anyways, this is a short update, but it is the result of a post-breakup Slap Post I read a while ago on Beck's page. I felt somewhat inspired and after much contemplating, decided to write it. So, here goes, with a promise to try and revive this story if I can.**

**Disclaimer: As always, Victorious isn't mine.**

…

The first thing Jade noticed was that the RV was a lot cleaner than she remembered. Gone were the flannel shirts that hung over the sofa, or the socks that usually littered the floor. The counter was clean, rather than covered by empty coffee cups, and the trash can empty. Even the fish tank was cleaner than usual.

Great. In the time since she'd broken up with Beck, Jade had completely forgotten that Beck had a cleaning lady, who had obviously come by. Now, her job would be even harder.

Jade glanced at her watch: 6:15. She estimated that she had around an hour before Beck came home from Nozu, since 6:00 was the time that they'd agreed on at lunch. Jade had been invited to dinner, too, but she'd turned it down with an eyeroll, claiming she had better things to do. Beck, however, had agreed to go, providing Jade with an opportunity she couldn't miss.

She'd been waiting for weeks to come collect her stuff from Beck's RV, now that they were officially broken up. Admittedly, she'd spent the first week thinking that their breakup would only be temporary, so it had seemed stupid to collect her stuff when, in all likelihood, she'd be right back in the RV within a few days.

However, as time passed, and it became abundantly clear that she and Beck weren't getting back together any time soon, Jade realized that she couldn't delay it any longer. She'd practically lived in the RV at times, and while she didn't particularly care about most of the things she'd left there (her toothbrush, for instance), there were a few, non-negotiable things that she wanted back, such as her black denim jacket. If this break up was going to be permanent—and it was looking that way—Jade didn't want to be reminded of Beck every time she opened her closet and saw the empty hook behind the door.

The only problem was Beck himself. Although Jade knew she was being irrational, she didn't want Beck to know that she wanted her things back, so she didn't want to ask him. As far as he knew, she'd walked away that night at Tori's without looking back. Jade had done everything she could to make it seem like she didn't care, and she preferred to keep it that way. All she needed to do was wait until she knew he would be out, and sneak in, since she'd never given him his key back. Considering how little she'd used it even while they were dating, Jade wasn't sure Beck even remembered that she had it.

Unfortunately, she hadn't planned for the RV to have been cleaned completely. Now it would take her a lot longer to find her things—and the clock was ticking. As quietly as possible, Jade pulled the door shut behind her and turned on the dim light over the stove, hoping his parents wouldn't notice that anything was amiss.

The first place she looked was the couch, although she knew it was unrealistic. The night before the Queries for Couples fiasco, she'd left her jacket hanging over the back of the sofa. Although she doubted that it would be there, Jade still removed all of the cushions, one by one, and even pulled out the couch in hope that her jacket had fallen behind it. No luck. All she found before violently shoving the couch back into place were a few used tissues, the repulsive remains of what appeared to be a bagel, and forty-two cents.

So she moved onto the dresser. Having rifled through it often, Jade knew exactly where everything was and went straight for the third drawer, where he kept his sweatshirts and a few of his lighter jackets. Nada. Next she tried to bottom drawer, where Beck stored his flannel shirts, but her jacket was nowhere to be found. She did, however, find a black, fairly-expsensive tank top of hers, which she yanked out and stuffed into her bag.

Still no jacket. Although she glanced quickly into the other drawers, Jade doubted that anything else of hers was stored in the remaining drawers—although she did discover Justin Bieber's latest album nestled underneath Beck's socks. Smirking, she pulled out her camera phone and took a picture. At some point, that knowledge would probably come in handy.

Jade almost walked away before she remembered that she'd probably left a few earrings on the dresser as well. Jade hated wearing dangly earrings while sleeping, so she'd always taken them out before spending the night. Glancing at his dresser—which, like the rest of the RV, was unrecognizably neat and organized—Jade spotted a silver earring almost immediately, sticking out from beneath a picture frame that had fallen, facedown, on the wood surface. Picking up the frame, she found its match as well.

Jade recognized the silver and black star earrings immediately; she'd gotten them from Cat back when they were freshmen. But she also recognized the picture frame, because it had been on Beck's dresser for ages. Until a few weeks ago, it had contained a picture of her and Beck before a dance during sophomore year. Now, though, it stood empty, a black background outlined in tarnished silver. Even though she'd always hated that photo (her hair had looked horrendous), she still felt a slight pang when she saw that it was gone.

Pocketing the earrings, Jade turned around to go check Beck's tiny bathroom, where she thought she might have left a pair of scissors. She was about halfway when there was a loud _squeak_ behind her—the sound of someone turning the door handle. Panicked, Jade dove underneath Beck's bed, praying that it wasn't Beck himself. If it was—well, she reasoned, she and Beck had been in plenty of awkward situations before, so she'd figure out a way to deal with it.

It wasn't Beck, though; that much became clear soon enough. As Jade watched, a pair of black high heels entered the RV and crossed the RV, before dropping a large white laundry basket that obscured her view. It was Beck's mom—it had to be, although as far as Jade knew, Beck had always done his own laundry to avoid any awkward questions in case it contained any of Jade's clothes. She supposed, though, that it didn't really matter now that Beck no longer _had_ a girlfriend (to her knowledge, anyway). Jade made a face. Typical mama's boy.

For the next few minutes, Jade listened to Beck's mother humming (off-key—how irritating) as she opened and closed Beck's drawers. God, how long was this going to take? Not only was Jade running out of time, but it was absolutely _disgusting_ under Beck's bed. She didn't even want to think about the revolting old tissues, dust, dirt, and whatever else was touching her hair at the moment. Instead, she concentrated on not moving.

Suddenly she felt a tickle in her nose. Crap. After enduring nearly ten minutes on the filthy carpet, Jade wasn't about to give herself away by _sneezing_. As quickly as she could, she drew her arm to her face, brushing against some sort of oddly-familiar fabric, and managed to muffle her sneeze so that Mrs. Oliver wouldn't hear. Finally, after thirteen minutes (not that Jade had been counting or anything), the door closed again, and the RV went silent. Attempting to extricate herself from the RV, Jade brushed against the cloth again…and suddenly realized what she was holding. Gripping it tightly, she pulled her very dusty black jacket out from underneath Beck's bed.

Her first thought was that it looked disgusting—covered in dust and stray hair, which Jade pulled off with the tips of her fingers. _Ew._ After a moment, though, she felt anger welling up inside her stomach. Beck knew that Jade loved that jacket; why would he have pushed it under his bed, where it would never have seen the light of day again?

Of course, Beck also knew that Jade loved _him_, and yet he still hadn't opened the door that night at Tori's. Maybe it would be giving him too much credit to expect him to treat her things with the any respect, considering the disrespect he'd shown her on that stupid TV show.

Stung, Jade threw her jacket over her arm, wrinkling her nose as dust rose into her face. Screw it. She'd come back for her scissors and whatever else later. Right now, she just wanted to get away from the stupid RV and the stupid boy who apparently didn't even care enough about his former girlfriend to treat her expensive clothing with a shred of decency. Well, screw him. _He_ certainly wasn't getting back any of the nice flannel shirts that she'd stolen.

In her haste to leave, she accidentally bumped against Beck's nightstand, sending a whiteboard and several pens crashing down to the floor, along with a few fluttering papers. _Shit_. It was 7:05, and she needed to leave. Jade scrambled to pick up the white board, haphazardly throwing the papers on top of it. As she was reaching for the final piece of paper, though, Jade felt a crunch under her boot—she'd stepped on a permanent marker, which had instantly cracked in two. Whatever; she'd deal with it later. She shoved the pieces of the marker into her bag, reached for the remaining piece of paper, and froze.

It was the picture from Beck's dresser. Beck's arm rested around Jade's shoulder, and he was wearing a nice button-down shirt; next to him, Jade stood, annoyed, as her boyfriend laughed. Her hair, still brown back then, was falling out of the updo she'd tried to give herself, which was the reason she'd always hated the photo. Still, seeing it here, buried underneath a pile of papers, wasn't right.

Headlights suddenly illuminated the windows of the RV—headlights that she was almost sure belonged to Beck's convertible. That meant that she had less than fifteen seconds to get out of the RV before Beck drove around close enough to see her escaping. Without another thought, Jade tossed the photo into her pocket and scrambled for the door, sliding through it and dashing around the back of the trailer just before Beck pulled up in front of it.

"Yeah, definitely, I know it's—hey, hang on a second."

Beck must have been on the phone. Jade heard him murmur "_what the…?_" before he said, louder this time, "hey, I'm going to have to call you back, the door to my RV's hanging open and I want to make sure no one broke into it." There was a beep, and quick footsteps, but Jade was already gone, disappearing onto the dark street.

She'd parked a block away, and her boots echoed loudly against the cement as she strode down the street. She hadn't gotten all of her things, and she'd touched God-knows-what while under the bed, but at least she'd gotten her jacket, shirt, and earrings without being caught. Plus that stupid picture, although Jade still wasn't sure why she'd even taken it in the first place. Whatever. She'd come back for her scissors, and the rest of her things, another time.

Later that night, as usual, she couldn't resist checking Beck's Slap page. Sure enough, there was a new update:

"_Someone broke into my RV and only stole 1 permanent marker. Worst robbery ever."_

Tori brought up the Slap post the next day at lunch. "So someone broke into your RV to steal a marker?"

Beck wrinkled his eyebrows. "Yeah, but I have no idea why. I thought maybe it was just my mom, but she swears that she shut the door after she went put my laundry away."

"How do you know they didn't steal something?" asked Andre curiously.

Beck shrugged. "I combed through everything, but the only thing that was gone was a permanent marker. I know I used it earlier that afternoon, but it wasn't on the table where I left it. Everything else was still there, though."

Tori and Andre seemed satisfied by this answer, and resumed talking about a strange incident involving silly string, soda, and a french horn that had taken place in the hallway that morning. Jade, however, didn't join the conversation. She knew she should feel relieved that Beck hadn't said anything to indicate that he suspected her. But for some reason, the fact that he hadn't even noticed the absence of the photograph, or her stuff, made her feel inexplicably sad.

**Wow. That was longer than I intended, but I like it. This is actually strangely reminiscent of a similar situation that I was in once, so it was a lot of fun to write, even if I was up for half the night.**

**As of now, this story is officially off of hiatus! For those readers who are still with me—thank you! I really appreciate your support and sorry I was gone for so long. I still get about a hundred hits a day (which is crazy!), so hopefully I can reward those people who have been waiting forever for an update. For the next month or so, I'll be alternating between updating this story and my other Victorious story, It's a Wonderful Life (which is brand new, so check it out!), but I'll do my best to update both.**

**As always, please leave a review! Whether you have an episode/moment you want to see covered, suggestions or criticism, I love feedback because it reminds me to update faster.**

**Happy weekend!**


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